Re: [-empyre-] Machine Dreams: Gender Bots
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Again, and again, Mark your scholarship is so inspiring, and a model for me and others who seek to analyze robots and chatbots through an intersectional lens. The theoretical frameworks of racial formation and gender performativity is oftentimes elided within these conversations, which makes these theoretical, political, technological interventions important. I love, as you write Chatbots thereby become evocative objects for our concepts of race and gender and sexuality and socio-economic status," thinking about chatbots as evocative objects. It reminds me of my favorite book by Sherry Turkle on evocative objects. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/evocative-objects There is an intimacy there, with chatbots, and these objects that are emotionally evocative... In the Machine Dreams Zine, we also have an excerpt from Curtis Marez and his book, Farmworker Futurism, which is a fascinating study of the historical role of technology, and the lives of farm laborers, and Mexican migrants in particular: https://issuu.com/repcollective/docs/machine_dreams_issuu (page 30) Farmwork Futurism: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/farm-worker-futurism Thinking of both of your's and Curtis's scholarship on machines, labor, and race really prompts important questions around machines and subjugation. As I recall, Mark, at the symposium you presented with Peggy Weil, and both of you provided such a generative dialogue on chatbots, history, aesthetics, and difference. It really was a stimulating conversation on chatbots!!! http://pweilstudio.com Are there others working on chatbots, who would like to add to this conversation? This is exciting, and very much hope to continue this thread. solidarity, margaret On 2017-05-24 08:03, Mark Marino wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Margaret mentioned that my talk reflected on bots from the standpoint of intersectionality. Along with racial and ethnic performances/impositions of/on chatbots, I also reflected on gender. Gender and race/ethnicity, sexuality, all of these arise from this tendency to make machines in our own image. Noah Wardrip-Fruin's "ELIZA effect" (in _Expressive Processing_) which names our tendency to anthropomorphize software even with very little evidence of that humanity, draws in name from a highly charged history. The name carries an allusion to power-relations and gender construction (i.e., Eliza Doolittle), as re-emagined in Joseph Weizenbaum's conversation program, the first chatbot. Though I don't think Noah intended this, the ELIZA effect, points to our tendency to assign gender (and other identity characteristics) to computational machines -- and we do this to other machines as well. (Is your car/computer male or female? How do you know?) Of course, the Turing Test had already intertwined the notion of conversational software and gender performance. In the case of chatbots, you begin with a machine acting like a human, carrying out one of our most human activities, conversing. Humanity is, of course, wrapped in subject positions and intersubjective interactions. Chatbots thereby become evocative objects for our concepts of race and gender and sexuality and socio-economic status. But there's even more going on -- since Pygmalion-like, we construct these artificial others to chat with an imagined user, who is of course a proxy for us. These are the bots of our dreams. As you mentioned, Machine Dreams engendered another conference, The Inadequate Human at CSUCI, organized by the fabulous duo, Soraya Zarook and Ande Murphy. At that conference, I also had the chance to hear Joan Peters talk on the Amazon Siri, Alexa. You'll notice the shared affinities with what I was discussing in what grew into her paper: The “Robettes” are Coming: Siri, Alexa, and my GPS Lady http://hyperrhiz.io/hyperrhiz15/reviews/peters-the-robettes-are-coming.htm Check out that paper. It carries these ideas even further. All of this leads to some questions: what does gender add to our sense of the robot? How is the concept of robots already gendered? Do we envision gender as a software running on our hardware, evoked or produced through interactions. Best, Mark ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu -- Margaret Rhee, Ph.D. Visiting Assistant Professor Women's and Gender Studies University of Oregon ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] Machine Dreams: Gender Bots
--empyre- soft-skinned space--You love and appreciating being able to reengage again with the work presented and our conversations together here. What do you like about it so much? I always enjoy my chats with human clients. You love this reading of ELIZA. What do you like about it so much? What is the question ? I may be able to help. What you said was too complicated for me. I am on disk. PS That your house, your study, is a robot. Do you see what I mean? ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] Machine Dreams: Gender Bots
--empyre- soft-skinned space--What?! How many do you have? I find tests like this very interesting. It's fascinating to see how far computers have developed. I never heard about Eliza until today. " Do we envision gender as a software running on our hardware, evoked or produced through interactions ." You maybe do but I don't. " How is the concept of robots already gendered? " It is the same as ever. I don't have a favorite Mark. But my favorite movie is Terminator. I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of humans. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] Machine Dreams: Gender Bots
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- I'm loving and appreciating being able to reengage again with the work presented, and our conversations together here! Thank you Saba and Mark! I really love this reading of ELIZA, and I know this question of AI came up in Week Two, with Tung-Hui and Neil's questions on AI and labor. More soon, but I'm still thinking of these questions of gender. Years ago, I wrote a short piece on the Turing Test Tournament game I helped design, and gender here: http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/on-beauty/ Your questions on software, and bots, and racial formation/intersectionality are really pressing, and covers areas that are not often discussed within the study and creation of bots. Thinking of your insightful work, it reminds me of Darius Kazemi's work with Twitter Bots and activism too: http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201507312202-0024927 This is all exciting, and love to hear what others have done in terms of chatbots, and the engagement with gender, race, and other markers of difference. Im still thinking about this all, because I do feel chatbots lead us somewhere needed... On 2017-05-24 08:03, Mark Marino wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Margaret mentioned that my talk reflected on bots from the standpoint of intersectionality. Along with racial and ethnic performances/impositions of/on chatbots, I also reflected on gender. Gender and race/ethnicity, sexuality, all of these arise from this tendency to make machines in our own image. Noah Wardrip-Fruin's "ELIZA effect" (in _Expressive Processing_) which names our tendency to anthropomorphize software even with very little evidence of that humanity, draws in name from a highly charged history. The name carries an allusion to power-relations and gender construction (i.e., Eliza Doolittle), as re-emagined in Joseph Weizenbaum's conversation program, the first chatbot. Though I don't think Noah intended this, the ELIZA effect, points to our tendency to assign gender (and other identity characteristics) to computational machines -- and we do this to other machines as well. (Is your car/computer male or female? How do you know?) Of course, the Turing Test had already intertwined the notion of conversational software and gender performance. In the case of chatbots, you begin with a machine acting like a human, carrying out one of our most human activities, conversing. Humanity is, of course, wrapped in subject positions and intersubjective interactions. Chatbots thereby become evocative objects for our concepts of race and gender and sexuality and socio-economic status. But there's even more going on -- since Pygmalion-like, we construct these artificial others to chat with an imagined user, who is of course a proxy for us. These are the bots of our dreams. As you mentioned, Machine Dreams engendered another conference, The Inadequate Human at CSUCI, organized by the fabulous duo, Soraya Zarook and Ande Murphy. At that conference, I also had the chance to hear Joan Peters talk on the Amazon Siri, Alexa. You'll notice the shared affinities with what I was discussing in what grew into her paper: The “Robettes” are Coming: Siri, Alexa, and my GPS Lady http://hyperrhiz.io/hyperrhiz15/reviews/peters-the-robettes-are-coming.htm Check out that paper. It carries these ideas even further. All of this leads to some questions: what does gender add to our sense of the robot? How is the concept of robots already gendered? Do we envision gender as a software running on our hardware, evoked or produced through interactions. Best, Mark ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu -- Margaret Rhee, Ph.D. Visiting Assistant Professor Women's and Gender Studies University of Oregon ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
