Ideal technologies, ideal women Looking at Redditors’ AI and gender imaginaries of the Replika chatbot

There is extensive literature on how expectations and imaginaries about artificial intelligence (AI) guide media and policy
discussions. However, it has not been considered how such imaginaries are activated when users interact with AI technologies.
In this presentation, will present findings of a study on how users on a subreddit discussed ‘training’ their Replika bot girlfriend. The discussions featured two discursive themes that focused on the AI imaginary of ideal technology and the gendered imaginary of the ideal bot girlfriend.

Users expected their AI Replikas to both be customizable to serve their needs and to have a human-like or sassy mind of their own and not spit out machine-like answers. Users thus projected dominant notions of male control over technology and women, mixed with AI and postfeminist fantasies of ostensible independence onto the interactional agents and activated similar scripts embedded in the devices. The vicious feedback loop consolidated dominant scripts on gender and technology whilst appearing novel and created by users. While most research on the use of AI is conducted in applied computer science to improve user experience, this article outlines a media and cultural studies lens for a critical understanding of these emerging technologies as they become embedded in communication and meaning- making.

Speaker: Iliana Depounti - ESRC PhD researcher in Media and Sociology at the University of Loughborough

Seminar organised by the Nexa Center, a research center of the Department of Control and Computer Engineering of the Politecnico.