Vox Ex Machina: A Cultural History of Talking Machines
Bell, Sarah A.
- 出版商: MIT
- 出版日期: 2024-09-24
- 售價: $1,900
- 貴賓價: 9.5 折 $1,805
- 語言: 英文
- 頁數: 256
- 裝訂: Quality Paper - also called trade paper
- ISBN: 0262546353
- ISBN-13: 9780262546355
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商品描述
How today's digital devices got their voices, and how we learned to listen to them.
From early robots to toys like the iconic Speak & Spell to Apple's Siri, Vox Ex Machina tells the fascinating story of how scientists and engineers developed voices for machines during the twentieth century. Sarah Bell chronicles the development of voice synthesis from buzzy electrical current and circuitry in analog components to the robotic sounds of early digital signal processing to today's human sounding applications. Along the way, Bell also shows how the public responded to these technologies and asks whether talking machines are even good for us. Using a wide range of intriguing examples, Vox Ex Machina is embedded in a wider story about people--describing responses to voice synthesis technologies that often challenged prevailing ideas about computation and automation promoted by boosters of the Information Age. Bell helps explain why voice technologies came to sound and to operate in the way they do--influenced as they were by a combination of technical assumptions and limitations, the choices of the corporations that deploy them, and the habits that consumers developed over time. A beautifully written book that will appeal to anyone with a healthy skepticism toward Silicon Valley, Vox Ex Machina is an important and timely contribution to our cultural histories of information, computing, and media.
From early robots to toys like the iconic Speak & Spell to Apple's Siri, Vox Ex Machina tells the fascinating story of how scientists and engineers developed voices for machines during the twentieth century. Sarah Bell chronicles the development of voice synthesis from buzzy electrical current and circuitry in analog components to the robotic sounds of early digital signal processing to today's human sounding applications. Along the way, Bell also shows how the public responded to these technologies and asks whether talking machines are even good for us. Using a wide range of intriguing examples, Vox Ex Machina is embedded in a wider story about people--describing responses to voice synthesis technologies that often challenged prevailing ideas about computation and automation promoted by boosters of the Information Age. Bell helps explain why voice technologies came to sound and to operate in the way they do--influenced as they were by a combination of technical assumptions and limitations, the choices of the corporations that deploy them, and the habits that consumers developed over time. A beautifully written book that will appeal to anyone with a healthy skepticism toward Silicon Valley, Vox Ex Machina is an important and timely contribution to our cultural histories of information, computing, and media.
商品描述(中文翻譯)
如何今天的數位裝置獲得了它們的聲音，以及我們如何學會傾聽它們。
從早期的機器人到像標誌性的 Speak & Spell 玩具，再到蘋果的 Siri，Vox Ex Machina 講述了科學家和工程師在二十世紀為機器開發聲音的迷人故事。Sarah Bell 記錄了從模擬元件中的嗡嗡電流和電路到早期數位信號處理的機器人聲音，再到今天聽起來像人類的應用程序的語音合成發展過程。在這個過程中，Bell 也展示了公眾對這些技術的反應，並詢問談話機器是否對我們有益。
使用一系列引人入勝的例子，Vox Ex Machina 嵌入了一個關於人類的更大故事——描述了對語音合成技術的反應，這些技術常常挑戰了信息時代推動者所宣揚的計算和自動化的主流觀念。Bell 幫助解釋了為什麼語音技術會以這種方式發聲和運作——它們受到技術假設和限制、部署它們的公司的選擇以及消費者隨時間發展的習慣的影響。
這本優美的書籍將吸引任何對矽谷持健康懷疑態度的人，Vox Ex Machina 是我們對信息、計算和媒體文化歷史的重要且及時的貢獻。
作者簡介
Sarah A. Bell is a writer and professor who studies the impacts of information technologies on society. She earned a PhD in Communication from the University of Utah in 2015.
作者簡介(中文翻譯)
Sarah A. Bell 是一位作家和教授，專注於研究資訊科技對社會的影響。她於2015年在猶他大學獲得傳播學博士學位。
