The Computer’s Voice: From Star Trek to Siri

Book Description

<b>A deconstruction of gender through the voices of Siri, HAL 9000, and other computers that talk</b>

Although computer-based personal assistants like Siri are increasingly ubiquitous, few users stop to ask what it means that some assistants are gendered female, others male. Why is <i>Star Trek</i>’s computer coded as female, while HAL 9000 in <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i> is heard as male? By examining how gender is built into these devices, author Liz W. Faber explores contentious questions around gender: its fundamental constructedness, the rigidity of the gender binary, and culturally situated attitudes on male and female embodiment.

Faber begins by considering talking spaceships like those in <i>Star Trek</i>, the film <i>Dark Star</i>, and the TV series <i>Quark</i>, revealing the ideologies that underlie space-age progress. She then moves on to an intrepid decade-by-decade investigation of computer voices, tracing the evolution from the masculine voices of the ’70s and ’80s to the feminine ones of the ’90s and ’00s. Faber ends her account in the present, with incisive looks at the film <i>Her</i> and Siri herself.

Going beyond current scholarship on robots and AI to focus on voice-interactive computers, <i>The Computer’s Voice</i> breaks new ground in questions surrounding media, technology, and gender. It makes important contributions to conversations around the gender gap and the increasing acceptance of transgender people.

中文：

书名：电脑之声：从《星际迷航》到Siri

&lt；b&gt；通过Siri、HAL 9000和其他会说话的计算机的声音解构性别；

尽管像Siri这样的基于电脑的个人助理越来越普遍，但很少有用户停下来问，一些助理是女性，另一些是男性，这意味着什么。为什么《星际迷航》/《星际迷航》的电脑被编码为女性，而《2001：太空漫游》中的HAL 9000被认为是男性？通过研究性别是如何融入这些装置的，作者Liz W.Faber探索了围绕性别的有争议的问题：它的基本构造性，性别二元的僵化，以及文化背景下对男性和女性化身的态度。

费伯首先考虑谈论太空飞船，比如电影《星际迷航》、电影《黑暗之星》和电视剧《太空时代》中的宇宙飞船，揭示了太空时代进步背后的意识形态。然后，她继续对计算机声音进行了大胆的十年一年的研究，追溯了从70年代和80年代的男性声音到90年代和00年代的女性声音的演变。费伯现在结束了她的叙述，她敏锐地审视了这部电影和Siri本人。

除了目前关于机器人和人工智能的学术研究，它还专注于语音交互计算机，计算机的语音在围绕媒体、技术和性别的问题上开辟了新的天地。它对围绕性别差距和越来越多地接受变性人的对话做出了重要贡献。