{"id":30535,"date":"2016-09-26T19:32:20","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T02:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/ghosts-in-the-machine-female-computers-in-science-fiction-and-history"},"modified":"2017-06-04T14:13:09","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T21:13:09","slug":"ghosts-in-the-machine-female-computers-in-science-fiction-and-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/ghosts-in-the-machine-female-computers-in-science-fiction-and-history","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts in the Machine: Female Computers in Science Fiction and History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/ghosts-in-the-machine-female-computers-in-science-fiction-and-history.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When the computer is addressed in many science fiction shows, it often replies in a female-coded voice. From Majel Roddenberry\u2019s Federation computer voice in the <em>Star Trek<\/em> series to the sentient ship AIs in <em>Andromeda<\/em>, <em>Killjoys<\/em>, <em>Dark Matter<\/em>, <em>Outlaw Star<\/em>, and <em>Mass Effect<\/em>, artificial intelligence has been a science fiction regular since at least the 1960\u2019s. There are male-coded AIs as well\u2014J.A.R.V.I.S., Hal, that weird Haley Joel Osment-bot from <em>A.I<\/em>.\u2014but women have been part of humanity\u2019s relationship with electric computers since the very beginning.<\/p>\n<p>Jennifer S. Light\u2019s article <a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/33396\">\u201cWhen Computers Were Women\u201d<\/a> discusses the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) project during World War II, and how the people doing the actual computational tasks were a group of civilian and military women. The women were actually the \u201ccomputers,\u201d and were creating a machine that would someday replace them. The concept of the women as the actual computers made me think about how many artificial intelligences, whether in android form or integrated into actual ships, are coded female.<\/p>\n<p>Light\u2019s article also pointed out that history buried these early female computers. Their work was made light of, devalued, and all credit was given to the male inventors of ENIAC, reducing them practically to \u201cghost in the machine\u201d status. This is where my mind made the connection. So many computer and AI characters are coded female because even layers of sexism and inequality still can\u2019t erase the connection between the first \u201ccomputers\u201d being women and the task of computing. You can take the woman out of the workplace, but you can\u2019t take the woman out of the machine she helped create.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themarysue.com\/women-are-computers\/\">http:\/\/www.themarysue.com\/women-are-computers\/<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the computer is addressed in many science fiction shows, it often replies in a female-coded voice. From Majel Roddenberry\u2019s Federation computer voice in the Star Trek series to the sentient ship AIs in Andromeda, Killjoys, Dark Matter, Outlaw Star, and Mass Effect, artificial intelligence has been a science fiction regular since at least the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,9,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-military","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30535"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66143,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30535\/revisions\/66143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}