AI in a Different Voice
Apolline Taillandier · 2023
Abstract Taillandier documents the creation of the programming language ‘Logo’, developed in the 1960s as an alternative way of teaching concepts in mathematics through computer science. She shows how, when designing Logo, programmers turned to feminist knowledge to rethink crucial aspects of artificial intelligence (AI). They redefined the desirable features of computer culture and the ideal profile of the computer scientist; they overcame divisions between the humanities and the sciences and between sensory and intellectual exploration; and they emphasised that computer languages and coding culture are always political as they are ways of gendering the world. As Taillandier notes, Logo’s limited success was partly attributed to the dominance of a masculinist computer culture. Regardless, Taillandier makes clear the value of remembering these radical developments in computer science, inspiring future ways of recasting the ambitions and significance of AI.