Voices from the uncanny valley: How robots and artificial intelligences talk back to us
Tanja Sihvonen; Tiina Männistö-Funk
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021042825380
Tiivistelmä
Voice 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.
Kokoelmat
- Rinnakkaistallenteet [19207]