Vox ex Machina. A Cultural History of Talking Machines, by Sarah A. Bell, a scholar, writer, teacher and currently an Associate Professor at Michigan Technological University. Published by MIT Press in open access.
Vox ex Machina analyses the quest to engineer electronic machines that simulate the human voice. In the book, Sarah A. Bell charts the development of a selection of voice synthesisers launched across the twentieth century, investigating their limitations, considering the implications of adopting a technology that apes the human voice and drawing parallels with current synthesised voices used as home assistants or as prosthetics.
The author also analysed some of the media coverage of specific voice synthesis products. The research reveals that there have always been people who perceived a talking machine as a step toward the automation –or even the substitution– of human beings. An article in Redbook magazine in 1955, for example, cited experts who worried that marriage rates might decline if “many functions of the …