I Dream of Siri: Magic and Female Voice Assistants

Abstract

Recent advances in science and engineering have facilitated the development of artificial intelligence voice assistants. While this is true from a technical aspect, smart speakers and voice assistants did not develop in isolation from the rest of human society. The devices may be new, but the practices and patterns in their development and use are not. Using Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology, I map homologous practices of smart speaker interaction onto historical conceptions of supernatural magic use. This structural comparison suggests that practices and patterns that were essential to magic use have re-emerged in smart speaker utilization in similar forms. Some of these practices are noteworthy for their homology alone. However, other homologous behaviors revive patterns of inequity that, in Western magical traditions, had privileged the traditionally educated man. The goal of this paper is to elucidate the ghost in the machine: the prejudiced social practices of supernatural magic that were asserted to be eradicated yet which are now, nevertheless, newly instantiated within our most cutting-edge devices.