Sharing Guido's message below! Hi Celina Please see below an event organised by NINSO <https://twitter.com/NinsoRIG> Northumbria Internet & Society Research group and of interest for NoC members. The video of the event will be uploaded on our YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkmxC2_qCl-Clro9YIUljCQ> channel. Cheers Guido *From:* Guido Noto La Diega *Sent:* 25 February 2019 18:03 *To:* 'european-law--technology-network@googlegroups.com' < european-law--technology-network@googlegroups.com> *Subject:* Make Google Do It. Interpellating digital subject/objects of desire in the gendering of artificially intelligent virtual personal assistants - Guest research seminar Dear All NINSO (Northumbria Internet & Society Research Group) is delighted to host Dr Rachel Adams for the guest research seminar ‘*Make Google Do It.** Interpellating digital subject/objects of desire in the gendering of artificially intelligent virtual personal assistants*.’ Generously *supported by the Law & Society SIG*, * the seminar* will explore how the particular gendering of artificially intelligence virtual personal assistants as female through their names, characterisations and marketing, meets with an imperative grammar with which users are to engage with them, most notably with the call “Hey Siri!” or “Hey Alexa!” Drawing on Louis Althusser and Judith Butler’s accounts of interpellation, I discuss how the gendering of these devices coupled with the new techno-crafted grammar given to engage with them, plays into a broader history of female automata produced as both subjects to and objects of a male desire to (literally) constitute, control and command the female. Thus, expanding on the current account of female gendered virtual personal assistants as a strategy for softening the transition from a traditional past to a disruptive digital future, I argue that, more critically, this gendering re-inscribes and legitimises a historically embedded male desire which works, primarily, to ensure the female is always in a subject to/object of relationship to their male “user”/maker, without agency to attain her own status as subject. *Dr Rachel Adams* is a Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council and an ECR at the Information Law and Policy Centre, Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. Dr Adams holds degrees in human rights law (MPhil, UCT, 2011) and jurisprudence (Ph.D., UCT, 2017). Her work and research spans human rights and constitutionalism, to artificial intelligence, gender, surveillance and transparency in South Africa and internationally. She is currently preparing a monograph book for publication entitled Transparency: New Trajectories in Law (Routledge, 2019). Dr Adams is a member of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s Independent Advisory Group on Automated Number Plate Recognition, she is an Editor for the South African Journal on Human Rights, and an Associate Editor for the theme Law, Policy Development and Management Science for Calabash: Journal of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems. *WHERE*: Faculty of Business and Law (CCE1), room 405 (but *if you can’t come, *a video will be recorded!) *WHEN*: Wednesday 6th March 2019 at noon Please *register* at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/make-google-do-it-tickets-56349087638. Looking forward to seeing you all! On behalf of NINSO – Northumbria Internet & Society Research Group, Guido *Dr Guido Noto La Diega* *Senior Lecturer – International Research Partnerships Coordinator (Law)* *Northumbria University Director @italiot | Co-convenor @NinsoRIG | Fellow @nexacenter* T: +44(0)191 349 5562 E: *guido.notoladiega@northumbria.ac.uk <guido.notoladiega@northumbria.ac.uk>* Room 105, Faculty of Business and Law, City Campus East 1, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom Recent papers include: ‘Against the dehumanisation of decision-making <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3188080>. Algorithmic decisions at the crossroads of intellectual property, data protection, and freedom of information’ (2018) ‘Can the law fix the problems of fashion? <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3198514> An empirical study on social norms and power imbalance in the fashion industry’ (2018) Visit Academia.edu <http://northumbria.academia.edu/GuidoNotoLaDiega> and SSRN <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1794950> for open access to my research! *[image: northumbria new logo]* <https://www.linkedin.com/in/guido-noto-la-diega-ph-d-6696146/> *GO GREEN, KEEP IT ON SCREEN!* This message is intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information. Any use, disclosure or reproduction without the sender’s explicit consent is unauthorised and may be unlawful. If you have received this message in error, please notify Northumbria University immediately and permanently delete it. 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