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 long 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.