Send message to Author

Paper Short Abstract

A fictional narrative of spirits interacting with human beings in order to make the latter perform in ways favourable for the first – a reverse anthropology – sheds light on the agencies of spirits in Indigenous singing as well as the magic of AI algorithms used in art music composition.

Paper Abstract

Among Western Amazonian Indigenous peoples, singing magical songs is the principal technique of interacting with non-human entities often referred to as ‘spirits’. Ritual specialists perform magical songs in order to manipulate circumstances; therefore, they have to either make a ‘fair deal’ with the spirits, or to trick, overthrow, or seduce them into effecting what the singer aims for. The ritual singers is a specialist in dealing with beings in different ontological layers, much like contemporary programmers and music composers who use AI algorithms for music making. Often, AIs are viewed as a ‘black box’, as entities that react/act in ways unexplorable for humans. While Indigenous councils debate whether AIs can be welcomed into their networks of kinship (Lewis & al. 2018), composers muse about the question whether the concepts of ‘magic’ and ‘spirits’ are helpful for understanding human-AI interaction (Letheren & al. 2020). This interaction involves very similar choices to the Indigenous ritualists’: one can try to use AI in a fair way, or to violate its original purpose. Algorithms can, like spirits, be tricked, and maybe even seduced.

In the presentation I am going to reverse agencies in order to relate a fictional story: what actions would the spirits take in order to effectively manipulate humans? Humanly constructed high-tech infrastructure comes up as a powerful tool and comfortable home for formerly Indigenous spirits that seek to interact with humans by making deals with them, and by overthrowing, seducing and tricking them.