Can the contingency of an Artefact be related to the context of it?
This is a detailed study on the topic or the artefact we chose — “Voice Technology”. Voice Technology can be broken into a few branches of study and I have chosen Speech Recognition. Personally, the reason for picking this topic is that I own an Echo Dot and was intrigued to know as to what would have led to the making of this device. Also, reading about Voice assistants on the news as an upcoming product got me thinking as to what is the history behind this?
How I started off our research is by collecting secondary data and then mapping all of them on a visual map. Out the entire timeline I selected 6 products of Voice Technology which were: Phonograph, Audrey, Harpy, Julie Doll, Dragon Dictate and Siri. I selected these six specifically because these were the main milestones in the development process of Speech Recognition.
We have formed our narrative using a web page which shows a timeline of how these events have been through time. In addition to that, we have personified each Device, and they give their introduction in their own sweet way. The reason we chose this narrative was because this project is based on Voice Technology and we wanted to integrate the aspect of Voice somewhere in the form we have chosen. So in our form, the timeline is in a parallel path with the narrative. The narrative also describes how it’s existence brought about Technological, Cultural and other impacts in the society.
As our research started off, I found out that Voice Technology did not start with the idea of commercialising it. In the 1880s, Edison started off with just experimenting with the telephone which led to the invention of the phonograph. Voice Technology became a commercial thing in the 1950s.
Additionally, when it comes to the creation of HARPY, which could understand 3000 words, DARPA played a big role. HARPY was created at Carnegie Mellon University and was funded by DARPA. It wanted to make changes in their military programs and wanted to develop it further which was possible with Voice Technology only. Places like Bell Labs and Carnegie Mellon University is responsible for about 50–60% of how much has been developed in Voice Technology, which led to the creation of voice assistants like Siri and Alexa.
Looking at Voice Technology from the perspective of why a female voice is being used:
Artificial Intelligence research field is predominantly white and male. A recent study shows that it sends a signal that they are docile and are “eager to please”. Last year, Amazon said that they chose a female sounding voice because market research indicated it would be received as more sympathetic and would be more helpful. Through this a conclusion can be brought about that this sets a very harmful stereotype for women through Artificial Intelligence. But what is the future of Voice Technology then, is it safe to use? Is it worth investing in?
