Underlying intelligent personal assistants such as Alexa and Siri are several Artificial Intelligence technologies: primarily speech synthesis (speech to text, text to speech) and conversational interaction.
The proper name given to Alexa and all personal assistants is an explicit anthropomorphic evocation, even in the absence of a visual representation of the human figure. The tone of voice and expressions are a constant quotation of Turing’s “Imitation Game,” in pursuit of an increasingly verisimilitude simulation of a docile human assistant, moreover connoted in sexual gender. Meta is planning to sell “friendly” chatbots, artificial friends available 24 hours a day across the group’s platforms. Synthetic friends that promise to bridge loneliness, while actually normalizing and monetizing it. Moreover, it is already proven that these artificial agents, who avoid confrontation and pander to humans, are excellent persuaders. Serving a multinational digital corporation, which can also make them available to totalitarian political systems.
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