Vocal Aesthetics, AI Imaginaries: Reconfiguring Smart Interfaces.
In 2019, a report commissioned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) claimed that the way users interface with technology is in the midst of a paradigm shift—from text input and output to voice input and output. Indeed, voice assistants such as Amazon’s Ale...
| Publicado en: | Afterimage Vol. 50; no. 2; pp. 129 - 150 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of California Press
Jun2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=164820991&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 164820991 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 03007472 ATF jtl: Afterimage issn: 03007472 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2023 vid: 50 iid: 2 pid: 414 pub: University of California Press artinfo: ui: 164820991 10.1525/aft.2023.50.2.129 ppf: 129 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.8MB tig: atl: Vocal Aesthetics, AI Imaginaries: Reconfiguring Smart Interfaces. aug: au: BORKOWSKI, ALEX affil: PhD candidate in the Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture at York University and Toronto Metropolitan University. su: Aesthetics Artificial neural networks Artificial intelligence Technological innovations UNESCO Audry, Sofian Gee, Erin sug: subj: Aesthetics Artificial neural networks Artificial intelligence Technological innovations UNESCO Audry, Sofian Gee, Erin keyword: artificial intelligence digital assistance Erin Gee Holly Herndon interfaces media art Sofian Audry voices Wolfgang von Kempelen ab: In 2019, a report commissioned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) claimed that the way users interface with technology is in the midst of a paradigm shift—from text input and output to voice input and output. Indeed, voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant are increasingly ever-present in domestic spaces. Against this backdrop, this paper proposes that critical thinking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) might be advanced and elaborated by simultaneously thinking critically about voice, unpacking beliefs that spoken language operates as a seamless “natural user interface,” as well as broader ideological convictions about voice’s exceptional status as a marker of unmediated self-presence. I examine the entangled conceptual roots between theories of voice and apocryphal origin stories of artificial intelligence in two eighteenth-century inventions—Wolfgang von Kempelen’s Mechanical Turk and speaking machine. The aesthetic practices surrounding these and other so-called thinking and speaking machines engender shifting relations of visibility and invisibility, obfuscating the role of human labor in creating the seeming magic of AI. I also examine two artistic projects—Holly Herndon’s electropop album PROTO (2019) and a series of collaborative works by Sofian Audry and Erin Gee titled of the soone (2018), to the sooe (2018), and Machine Unlearning (2018–19)—that, in their varied deployments of machine learning in vocal performance, challenge the ideological foundations of the sociotechnical milieu from which they emerge. These artworks tune into the frictions and glitches inherent to vocal interfaces and thereby unravel the vocal imaginary that sustains the illusion of their neutrality, self-sufficiency, or, indeed, intelligence. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Afterimage is the property of University of California Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Afterimage holder: University of California Press dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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