Because of *THIS*? ... and the name was "false Maria".

neb:

MikeAqua:

There was some research back in the 1990s suggesting that a female voice commands more attention.  Hence many early GPS voices etc were female.

It goes back before the 1990s, it was originally done for fighter pilots, who were exclusively male at the time and who responded better to female voices when under stress. More recent work, and in particular at a time when there were female pilots as well, indicated that there's little difference between the two, or at least it varies based on the situation and there's no clear winner.

GPS voices need to be female though so you can call your GPS Pamela (Anderson):..

TwoSeven:

From a software engineering perspective it has been my experience that most robots don’t resemble people in the slightest way. Perhaps the original poster is referring to media stereotypes more.

When it comes to voice, I would suggest it makes no difference. In advertising I understand there is a concept called ‘tone of voice’ but I think I would be dependant on the target audience. One can often just switch genders for a change, but I think there is really little difference.

As an aside, it would be great to not be able to see sexist comments about people in the forums.

The original poster specifically stated 'humanoid robots' in the original post if you take the trouble to read it. I wasn't referring to industrial robots, or domestic robots, or military robots, or even lab robots. My question was why are most humanoid robots made to resemble young ladies.