Article:
Voices from the Uncanny Valley: How Robots and Artificial Intelligences Talk Back to Us

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dc.creatorMännistö-Funk, Tiina
dc.creatorSihvonen, Tanja
dc.date.accessioned2020-03-10T10:07:23Z
dc.date.available2020-03-10T10:07:23Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractVoice is a powerful tool of agency – for humans and non-humans alike. In this article, we go through the long history of talking heads and statues to publicly displayed robots and fortune-tellers, as well as consumer-oriented products such as the late 19th century talking dolls of Thomas Edison. We also analyse the attempts at making speaking machines commercially successful on various occasions. In the end, we investigate how speech producing devices such as the actual digital assistants that operate our current technological systems fit into this historical context. Our focus is on the gender aspects of the artificial, posthuman voice. On the basis of our study, we conclude that the female voice and other feminine characteristics as well as the figures of exoticized and racialized ‘Others’ have been applied to draw attention away from the uncanniness and other negative effects of these artificial humans and the machinic speech they produce. Technical problems associated with the commercialization of technologically produced speech have been considerable, but cultural issues have played an equally important role.en
dc.identifier.doi10.25969/mediarep/13525
dc.identifier.urihttp://digicults.org/files/2019/11/dcs-2018-0105.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://mediarep.org/handle/doc/14451
dc.languageeng
dc.publishertranscript
dc.publisher.placeBielefeld
dc.relation.isPartOfissn:2364-2114
dc.relation.ispartofseriesDigital Culture & Society
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 Generic
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
dc.subjectroboticsen
dc.subjectroboten
dc.subjectartificial intelligenceen
dc.subjectAIen
dc.subjectvoiceen
dc.subjectspeechen
dc.subjectagencyen
dc.subjectuncannyen
dc.subjectanthropologyen
dc.subjectwomenen
dc.subjectgenderen
dc.subjectotheringen
dc.subjectThe Otheren
dc.subjectRobotikde
dc.subjectRoboterde
dc.subjectAndroidde
dc.subjectKünstlicher Menschde
dc.subjectKünstliche Intelligenzde
dc.subjectKIde
dc.subjectStimmede
dc.subjectHandlungsmachtde
dc.subjectDas Unheimlichede
dc.subjectAnthropologiede
dc.subjectFrauende
dc.subjectDas Anderede
dc.subjectGeschlechtde
dc.subject.ddcddc:006
dc.subject.ddcddc:301
dc.titleVoices from the Uncanny Valley: How Robots and Artificial Intelligences Talk Back to Usen
dc.typearticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dspace.entity.typeArticleen
local.coverpage2021-05-29T02:32:29
local.identifier.firstpublishedhttp://digicults.org/files/2019/11/dcs-2018-0105.pdf
local.source.epage64
local.source.issue1
local.source.issueTitleRethinking AI
local.source.spage45
local.source.volume4

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4(1) 2018: Rethinking AI