AI at Home: An Urgent Urban Policy and Research Agenda

ABSTRACT

This article makes the case for considering conversational AI devices a critical urban challenge, particularly as the home gains importance in everyday life. Drawing on excerpts from conversations with Alexa – the market-leading digital voice assistant designed and manufactured by Amazon – the article illustrates how this device’s friendly feminine personality masks significant environmental and gender effects. Building on the author’s ongoing research on the smart home, the article considers how the “feminist reboot” proposed by Strengers & Kennedy in The Smart Wife could provide promising routes for urban scholars seeking to disrupt and intervene in the troubling trajectories of feminised AI.

摘要

这篇文章提出了将对话人工智能设备视为一个关键的城市挑战的理由，尤其是当家庭在日常生活中变得越来越重要时。这篇文章摘自与Alexa（由亚马逊设计和制造的市场领先的数字语音助手）的对话。文章阐述了这款设备友好的女性个性如何掩盖重大的环境和性别影响。基于作者正在进行的关于智能家居的研究，本文考虑了Strengers 和 Kennedy在《智能妻子》中提出的「女权主义重启」如何为城市学者提供有希望的途径，试图打破和干预女性化人工智能令人不安的轨迹。

KEYWORDS:

• Smart urbanism
• AI
• home
• sustainability
• gender
• conversational agents

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).