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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

Hm yes, a female that is utterly servile and obedient. Perfect.

Her, as in a machine to which I have developed an emotional connection which happens to have a female name as it's own. The tie is between the name Alexa and the user. Had amazon named it AZ5000, this person would probably have called it it. But her shows a bond. One which is uncommon between humans and machines.

My comment is on the beauty of the bond between the user and the machine. Do not read anymore into it or give it negative connotations.

Fair enough. My reply was sarcastic BTW, but highlighting that Amazon chose to give a female name and persona to a device that does what it is told without question. Is it possible to reassign its gender and call it "Alex" and give it a male voice?

I do think that emotional bonds between humans and machines are fundamently unhealthy, but that's got a long history so it's nothing new (e.g. sailors calling their ships "her").

I apologize for not understanding your response as sarcastic.

> I do think that emotional bonds between humans and machines are fundamently unhealthy

Is this an emotional bond because the OP said "her", or do you sense that for some other reason? Do you say this only in the context of high technology, the 21st century, or does a person talking about their car "She purrs like a kitten"[0] elicit the same response in you?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X919tRgip3k

I think perhaps I would be more comfortable with a Star Wars droid style name like 'AZ', tbh

A2-Z2? :)

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