One of the most memorable 2018 Super Bowl television commercials speculated on the loss of Alexa’s voice. At first, the viewer watches a woman at home, commanding the Amazon artificial-intelligence device to provide information. But the woman is surprised when the automaton belts out a cough and goes silent. Back at Amazon headquarters, the Alexa team reassures CEO Jeff Bezos of the backup plan, which entails the use of celebrities such as Gordon Ramsey and Cardi B to fill in for Alexa. Consumers requesting Alexa’s assistance are met with a slew of comical responses. The commercial aims to show the inadequacy and unpredictably of the human as a machine. In this episode, “Not So Artificial Intelligence,” I examine the ways in which assistive technology has become a new terrain for artists like Trisha Baga, Stephanie Dinkins, and Cara deFabio. Each artist has incorporated the use of assistive technology to explore human emotional labor as well as the slippery nature of language. For instance, in deFabio’s performance, Virtual Girlfriend (2017), the artist conducted extensive research on the crowdsourced labor of providing digital companionship to strangers around the world. Baga, meanwhile, examines what might happen when we develop an intimate relationship with a virtual assistant, in her work Mollusca & The Pelvic Floor (2018). The essay titled Telegraphy’s Corporeal Fictions, by the scholar Katherine Stubb, is a point of departure for the episode. Stubb’s work centered on phone operators, who were often women, as the providers of both connectivity and emotional support to the listener.

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