Can Her Voice Crack? I am not sure I understand

Speech has a long history as an intra-human medium of communication, so far as to be considered one of the defining characteristics of the category. How does the use of speech as an interface with technology unsettles existing relations to speech and to what is understood as human? Through a research method that is both theoretical but also derived through my cohabitation with Siri, Alexa and Google assistant the text explores the politics, poetics and philosophies, as well as ways of relating to voice interfaces (VI). This paper is an excerpt of a much longer essay with the same title. The first section, investigates the ways voice interfaces frame speech through the algorithmic principles in use, as well as questioning whose voices and culture such entities are more likely to understand. The second section questions the framework of the virtual assistant in relation to feminised voices and feminised labour. The last chapter considers voice interfaces as apparatuses and problematises their role within the current socio-political capitalist structures.

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Danae lo: Role: Independent scholar

Conference

Publication date: July 2019

Publication date (Print): July 2019

Pages: 321-329

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[0001]Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2019.61

SO-VID: 478d4986-a48e-4811-ad2b-0ac4db797de8

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of EVA London 2019

Conference acronym: EVA 2019

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Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 8 - 11 July 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2019.61

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] G. Agamben 2010 What is an apparatus? and other essays Friendship as a Form of Life Santa Cruz, CA

[2] M Alper 2017 Giving voice: mobile communication, disability, and inequality The MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[3] M. Alper 2017 The New Inquiry https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/talking-like-a-princess-what-speaking-machines-say-about-human-biases/ retrieved 3 December 2017 )

[4] J. Al Hosni 2015 Globalization and the Linguistic Imperialism of the English Language Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) 6 1 298 308

[5] Amazon Echo 2017 Amazon Alexa Moments: Vacuum (Amazon Echo Commercial) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqRzOXBSB5Y retrieved 5 January 2018 )

[6] Apple Support 2016 Use your voice to enter text on your Mac https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202584 retrieved 27 December 2017 )

[7] F. B. Berardi 2012 Emancipation of the Sign: Poetry and Finance During the Twentieth Century E-flux http://www.e-flux.com/journal/39/60284/emancipation-of-the-sign-poetry-and-finance-during-the-twentieth-century/ retrieved 30 November 2017 )

[8] M. Böhlen 2008 Robots with Bad Accents: Living with Synthetic Speech Leonardo 41 3)

[9] B.H. Bratton 2016 The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[10] W. Brown 2015 Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution Zone books New York

[11] L. Burton 1999 Smart House Disney-ABC Domestic Television United States

[12] A CavareroP. A. Kottman 2005 For More than One Voice: toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression Stanford University Press California

[13] L. Cerejo 2017 Designing Voice Experiences Smashing Magazine https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/05/designing-voice-experiences/ retrieved 3 December 2017 )

[14] M. H. CohenJ. P. GiangolaJ. Balogh 2007 Voice user interface design Addison-Wesley Boston MA

[15] P. DardotC. Laval 2014 The New Way of the World, Part I: Manufacturing the Neoliberal Subject E-flux http://www.e-flux.com/journal/51/59958/the-new-way-of-the-world-part-i-manufacturing-the-neoliberal-subject/ retrieved January 03 2018)

[16] C. DeAmicis 2017 Meet the Women Behind Amazon’s Alexa Marie Claire http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a27908/alexa-creator-toni-reid/ retrieved 3 December 2017 )

[17] M. DinarelliS. QuarteroniS. TonelliA. MoschittiG. Riccardi 2009 Annotating spoken dialogs Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Semantic Representation of Spoken Language – SRSL 09 34 41 doi:10.3115/1626296.1626301

[18] M. Dolar 2006 A Voice And Nothing More MIT Press Cambridge MA

[19] U. Eco 1986 Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language Indiana University Press Bloomington

[20] E. Finn 2018 The Serendipity of Semiautonomous Systems MIT Press https://mitpress.mit.edu/multimedia/podcasts/serendipity-semiautonomous-systems retrieved 3 January 2018 )

[21] N. Gane 2006 When We Have Never Been Human, What Is to Be Done?: Interview with Donna Haraway Theory, Culture & Society 23 7-8 135 158

[22] H. GilesN. CouplandJ. Coupland 1991 Accommodation theory: Communication, context, and consequence Contexts of Accommodation doi:10.1017/cbo9780511663673.001

[23] J. Giangola 2017 Conversation Design: Speaking the Same Language Google Design https://design.google/library/conversation-design-speaking-same-language/ retrieved 5 January 2018 )

[24] F. Guattari 1995 Chaosmosis Indiana University Press Bloomington, IN

[25] D. Haraway 2016 Staying With The Trouble: Making Kin In The Chthulucene Duke University Press Durham

[26] H. Hester 2015 01 Inhuman Symposium – Helen Hester https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSBefHq7Co retrieved 03 December 2017 )

[27] H. Hester 2016 Technically Female: Women, Machines, and Hyperemployment Salvage http://salvage.zone/in-print/technically-female-women-machines-and-hyperemployment/ retrieved 05 January 2018 )

[28] D. JurafskyJ. H. Martin 2009 Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction To Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition Prentice Hall New Jersey

[29] A. Kantrowitz 2016 Google Is Feeding Romance Novels To Its Artificial Intelligence Engine To Make Its Products More Conversational BuzzFeed https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/googles-artificial-intelligence-engine-reads-romance-novels retrieved 3 December 2017 )

[30] S KemberJ. Zylinska 2015 Life after new media: mediation as a vital process The MIT Press Cambridge MA

[31] S. Kember 2016 iMedia: the gendering of objects, environments and smart materials Palgrave Macmillan UK

[32] W. Kyong Chun 2011 Programmed Visions: Software And Memory The MIT Press Cambridge MA

[33] E. Livni 2017 People are using Siri as a therapist, so Apple is seeking engineers who understand psychology Quartz https://qz.com/1078857/apples-siri-job-posting-seeks-engineers-with-psychology-skills-to-improve-its-counseling-abilities/ retrieved January 3 2018)

[34] A. Mackenzie 2015 The production of prediction: What does machine learning want? European Journal of Cultural Studies 18 4-5 444

[35] R. Manthorpe 2017 The human (and Pixar characters) inside Google’s Assistant WIRED https://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-human-in-google-assistant retrieved 3 December 2017 )

[36] Merriam-Webster 2018 Ambient https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ambient retrieved 3 January 2018 )

[37] Nuance Enterprise 2014 Nina Web – A More Human Digital Experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur220XdCTt4 retrieved 3 January 2018 )

[38] Nuance Enterprise(2017 Vocalizer 6 has got personality https://www.nuance.com/landing-pages/playground/Vocalizer_Demo2/vocalizer_modal.html?demo=true retrieved 20 November 2017 )

[39] Nuance Enterprise 2017 Nuance Demonstration of Nina for Amazon® Alexa™ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJnqvo2kzxk retrieved 5 January 2018 )

[40] E. C. McLaughlin 2017 Suspect OKs Amazon to hand over Echo recordings in murder case CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/ retrieved 5 January 2018 )

[41] M. Pasquinelli 2016 Abnormal Encephalization in the Age of Machine Learning E-flux http://www.e-flux.com/iournal/75/67133/abnormal-encephalization-in-the-age-of-machine-learning/ retrieved 5 January 2018 )

[42] S. Paul 2017 Voice Is the Next Big Platform, Unless You Have an Accent Wired https://www.wired.com/2017/03/voice-is-the-next-big-platform-unless-you-have-an-accent/ retrieved 11 January 2018 )

[43] E. SchmidtJ. Cohen 2014 The new digital age: transforming nations, businesses, and our lives Vintage Books New York

[44] M. E. StuckeA. Ezrachi 2017 The Subtle Ways Your Digital Assistant Might Manipulate You Wired https://www.wired.com/2016/11/subtle-ways-digital-assistant-might-manipulate/ retrieved 5 January 2018 )

[45] A. L. Tsing 2015 Friction: An ethnography of global connection Princeton University Press Princeton

[46] Verge, The 2013 Inside Nuance: the art and science of how Siri speaks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu-tIqnUUX8 retrieved 3 December 2017 )

[47] P. Virno 2015 When The Word Becomes Flesh: Language And Human Nature Semiotext(e) Pasadena CA

[48] Vi Trainer 2017 Meet the A.I. who helps you get fit & live well Get Vi https://www.getvi.com/ retrieved 03 December 2017 )

[49] J. Wajcman 2000 Feminism Confronts Technology Polity Press Cambridge, UK

[50] WindowsVideos 2016 Cortana in India https://www.voutube.com/watch?v=6hrvln4c7Q4 retrieved 5 January 2018 )

[51] D. Yadron 2016 Google Assistant takes on Amazon and Apple to be the ultimate digital butler The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/18/google-home-assistant-amazon-echo-apple-siri retrieved 17 December 2017 )

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