The Smart Wife
Why Siri, Alexa, and Other Smart Home Devices Need a Feminist Reboot

I just might need a reboot myself after reading this one. I think you can best describe this book as half research, half manifesto. There is a tremendous amount of notes in this book, it almost makes it hard to read for me. Some of the research and information the authors pulled together is fascinati......more

It was okay, nothing spectacular. The book has a fantastic introduction that provides a lot of food for thought about the role of consumer technology in our homes, but seems to lose focus and become prescriptive in later chapters. Parts I liked: -The authors drew a connection between Rosie and The Je......more

This is an excellent interrogation of the "smart wife" phenomenon, examining history (including prototypical "speaking statue" installations in Italy many years ago that listened to people to feed information to oligarchs), popular culture, marketing, gender dynamics, and many other facets. The auth......more

The Smart Wife asks questions .. lots of important questions. Why is the default voice of home devices female? It seems an innocuous question but it takes you a long way into our basic societal assumptions. And the questions just keep coming and keep being explored. And yet, reading this book (excee......more

This wasn’t really a book that I would seek out for myself (was recommended it by a colleague for my PhD) but i thought provided a good overview of the issues at play within automated decision making and gender in a broadly accessible manner. The bit I most enjoyed was the manifesto at the end, whic......more