ingest cdrApp 2017-08-15T21:15:02.224Z d91e81c8-5a8a-4e8a-976c-cad4e396e5ee modifyDatastreamByValue RELS-EXT fedoraAdmin 2017-08-15T21:15:54.212Z Setting exclusive relation modifyDatastreamByValue RELS-EXT fedoraAdmin 2017-08-15T21:16:03.194Z Setting exclusive relation addDatastream MD_TECHNICAL fedoraAdmin 2017-08-15T21:16:12.322Z Adding technical metadata derived by FITS modifyDatastreamByValue RELS-EXT fedoraAdmin 2017-08-15T21:16:30.490Z Setting exclusive relation addDatastream MD_FULL_TEXT fedoraAdmin 2017-08-15T21:16:41.641Z Adding full text metadata extracted by Apache Tika modifyDatastreamByValue RELS-EXT fedoraAdmin 2017-08-15T21:16:51.111Z Setting exclusive relation modifyDatastreamByValue RELS-EXT cdrApp 2017-08-22T13:51:52.490Z Setting exclusive relation modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2017-08-29T17:35:15.175Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-01-25T17:57:08.795Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-01-27T17:36:07.589Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-03-14T15:25:01.665Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-05-18T17:49:55.926Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-07-11T14:03:35.392Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-07-18T09:46:06.715Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-08-17T15:43:12.392Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-08-21T18:33:31.230Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-09-27T19:04:00.259Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-10-12T09:52:40.120Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2018-10-17T15:10:51.645Z modifyDatastreamByValue MD_DESCRIPTIVE cdrApp 2019-03-21T20:04:24.436Z Heather Woods Author Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (RE)IMAGINING THE TECHNO-BODY: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, EMBODIMENT, AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. Summer 2017 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text Heather Woods Author Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. Summer 2017 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. Summer 2017 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. Summer 2017 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017-08 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Degree granting institution Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Degree granting institution Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence; embodiment; gender; rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Degree granting institution Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School Degree granting institution Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences (Re)Imagining the Techno-Body: Artificial Intelligence, Embodiment, and the Technological Future This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence, embodiment, gender, rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Communication Studies Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Degree granting institution Heather Woods Creator Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences This dissertation illuminates how gendered stereotypes are leveraged to the benefit of corporations that market and sell artificially intelligent objects. In particular, the research shows that these AI objects traffic in normative gender roles of the feminine as caretaker, mother, and wife in order to obfuscate modes of surveillance, and mediate the relationship users and potential users have with late-capitalist market logics in the platform economy. Mobilizing essentialist feminine personas, artificially intelligent objects orient users to engage productively with surveillance capitalism as ‘natural.’ To illustrate this relationship between the feminine and surveillance, this dissertation focuses on two case studies. The first turns to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as emblematic of AI VA that perform a stereotypically feminine persona that invites users to participate in increasingly intimate forms of data exchange that in turn contribute to surveillance capitalism. The study of AI VA, like Siri and Alexa, demonstrates the significant rhetorical capacities of the feminine persona as they are applied to objects with weak (that is, limited) artificial intelligence. In the second case study, I demonstrate how fictive representations of general AI also utilize normative conceptions of the feminine to gesture to the ‘human.’ Through a critical rhetorical reading of the films Ex Machina and Her, this research shows that even an imagined future of artificially intelligent bodies relies upon and re-inscribes patriarchal conceptions of the feminine in the technological present and future. In addition, focusing on gendered narratives and stereotypes, these dystopian films, much like Siri and Alexa, distract from, and even normalize the rapid development of systems trading in surveillance capitalism. 2017 Communication artificial intelligence; embodiment; gender; rhetoric eng Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Kumarini Silva Thesis advisor Christian Lundberg Thesis advisor Dennis Mumby Thesis advisor Torin Monahan Thesis advisor Zeynep Tufekci Thesis advisor text 2017-08 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Degree granting institution Woods_unc_0153D_17265.pdf uuid:25397983-925c-46b3-9e1f-31f661252aba proquest 2019-08-15T00:00:00 2017-07-20T14:18:16Z application/pdf 5466239 yes