I have a new Mac air book and it has dictation on it. I'm sure my last one did too, but I don't remember if it worked very well. I was thinking about a post Thomas had on his blog about the process of writing as something embodied. It seems odd that disability studies would a favor an embodied model of writing on when actually technology can make riding less embodied. For example, I don't need to use my hands to write this post. I could compose a scholarly article without typing a single word, if I can get good enough at this process. Anyway, the post is not turning out perfectly and I will have to go back to correct some words that my computer heard wrong, or that I pronounced in an ambiguous way. There are also privacy concern, since Apple receives my spoken words and then sends them back to me as printed text.
This reminds me of something I noticed in Spike Jonze's Her. He imagined a future in which most writing gets done by talking (and a lot of reading by listening). I think this was necessary to give the AI an environment she could feel real in (to the audience, but I guess also to herself.) She needed a voice that resonated.
ReplyDeleteWell in the late 80s my colleague composed a book by dictating it into a tape recorder while commuting, or so he said. And now at our local CC people teach entirely with videos, no reading, said a history prof there to me not too long ago, because the students can't read.
ReplyDelete