Computer 'voice'

[TarnishedPenny]

Okaaaay, well into the writing the Great Erotic Novel and have a question for those, if not Older, then at least Wiser than myself. (Objectively, that's not all that hard - just work with me.)

It's post-singularity and there are two main characters, one a young woman and the other the world computer, oh, call it 'Unicomp'. Computer voices in movies have always been just slightly out of step with human voices. Be it the shrill "Stair-Il-Ize!" of a rogue Star Trek satellite to the inhumanly human measured tones of the bearded Programmer in The Matrix, good ones have always been a bit distinctive. So, is there a way to express this in writing, here?

The obvious answer is to use my superlative writing skills, otherwise sticking to the Chicago Manual of Style. Yes, yes, got it. But aside from that?

Putting Unicomp's words all in caps would be superdistinctive, but also distracting, as would all italics or - ick! - all in bold. Small caps might work but that's not on the approved list.

Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Small caps might work but that's not on the approved list.

Yᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ᴅᴏ ғᴏɴᴛ-ᴠᴀʀɪᴀɴᴛ: sᴍᴀʟʟ-ᴄᴀᴘs ʙᴜᴛ ᴍᴀʏʙᴇ ᴠɪᴀ Uɴɪᴄᴏᴅᴇ?

https://yaytext.com/small-caps/

I don't think I'd use it myself, the letter weight comes out uneven and I'm not sure how accessible it is for screen readers. But might be an option.

 

[Britva415]

is there a way to express this in writing, here?

The only way is to describe it, or, the effect it has on hearers.

Even if you found a way to use typography to set the voice off, it still wouldn't actually convey anything.

 

[Baztrachian]

So, is there a way to express this in writing, here?

Give the computer a personality. Go from there.

 

[EmilyMiller]

<kbd>I am your electronic overlord</kbd>

 

[AllenWoody]

Assuming this is more than just a few exchanged lines of dialog then I'd worry anything too distinctive would become annoying and intrusive.

I'd be more inclined to look for other ways to convey the distinct character of Unicomp. Certain phrases or structures that it favors, forms of address that seem quirky. Or perhaps even include scenes where Unicomp apologizes if it isn't speaking to her properly, and offers to employ certain idioms or dialects.

 

[AllenWoody]

Give the computer a personality. Go from there

Yes, this is a more succinct way of saying what I was trying to say.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Give the computer a personality. Go from there.

This.

Think of HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey, that slightly fussy but unhurried voice, but with a clearly identified "personality" sitting behind the red orb.

Fancy typography [edit, wrong word originally] in a story would be very distracting for me as a reader. I can't think of a single mainstream novel depicting a speaking computer where anything other than normally punctuated dialogue is used.

@TarnishedPenny - don't try to invent something you don't need, would be my suggestion.

 

[PennyThompson]

"Hello? Blue? Are you still here?" He called out.

"She's bathing," a voice said, seemingly from the walls. It was flat and neutral, of indeterminate gender, sounding slightly bored.

"Um. Who's there?"

"The ship."

"Oh. What's your name?"

"Ship."

"Okay... Are you, like, an intelligent AI, or just an oversized Alexa?"

"More intelligent than you, biped."

'Great, a snarky spaceship. That's not very original you know, we've got lots of snarky AI in our sci-fi. It's kind of a cliché."

"I know, I've watched and read all of the speculative media on your primitive local network. Most of it is kind of dumb and unimaginative, but they got that part right, at least. I'm using about 0.05% of my processing power to interact with you, you're just not that interesting. Anyway, Blue instructed me to make you comfortable. Would you like some animal meat? A flint knife? The secret of fire?"

"Caveman jokes, that's funny. For now I'd settle for some clothes, got anything that will fit a biped?"

This was from my attempt at a sentient computer character

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Some lines from Hex are sandwiched between plus signs. APEX also has the creepy ability of imitating people up to, but not limited to, their appearance, yet when it talks without a mask, USUALLY DOES IN CAPS. SHORT SENTENCES. YES. AND. LOTS. OF. MONOSYLLABIC. WORDS.

I think it depends on the computer's personality. Is it more like Marvel's J.A.R.V.I.S., or is it more like Harlan Ellison's AM?

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'm with the computer personality crowd. Define how it sounds, and give it a consistent voice. Does it shorten words, or use odd phrasing? Maybe English and Hindi are now the dominant languages, so add a mix.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

This.

Think of HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey, that slightly fussy but unhurried voice, but with a clearly identified "personality" sitting behind the red orb.

That was my first thought.

But there is also Joshua (WOPR).

I recall a few others that had enough personality to argue with the humans, but I don't recall the names of the shows or movies.

Then there are the android types like Twikki and Johnny Five.

 

[Actingup]

Okaaaay, well into the writing the Great Erotic Novel and have a question for those, if not Older, then at least Wiser than myself. (Objectively, that's not all that hard - just work with me.)

It's post-singularity and there are two main characters, one a young woman and the other the world computer, oh, call it 'Unicomp'. Computer voices in movies have always been just slightly out of step with human voices. Be it the shrill "Stair-Il-Ize!" of a rogue Star Trek satellite to the inhumanly human measured tones of the bearded Programmer in The Matrix, good ones have always been a bit distinctive. So, is there a way to express this in writing, here?

The obvious answer is to use my superlative writing skills, otherwise sticking to the Chicago Manual of Style. Yes, yes, got it. But aside from that?

Putting Unicomp's words all in caps would be superdistinctive, but also distracting, as would all italics or - ick! - all in bold. Small caps might work but that's not on the approved list.

Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

It may be worth looking at David Brin's brilliant 'Startide Rising', an award winning Sci-Fi novel from decades ago. The cast includes uplifted dolphins speaking a mixture of advanced and more primal poetry-based languages, humans, a variety of alien civilizations (mostly trying to capture the human and dolphin crew), and a computer. Each are given their own distinctive voices through the form, punctuation and special characters, and ways of forming concepts. The dolphin speech is just astounding IMHO, as Brin uses the variations to show the degree of 'uplift' and reversion of each member of the crew at each moment.

 

[PennyThompson]

It may be worth looking at David Brin's brilliant 'Startide Rising', an award winning Sci-Fi novel from decades ago. The cast includes uplifted dolphins speaking a mixture of advanced and more primal poetry-based languages, humans, a variety of alien civilizations (mostly trying to capture the human and dolphin crew), and a computer. Each are given their own distinctive voices through the form, punctuation and special characters, and ways of forming concepts. The dolphin speech is just astounding IMHO, as Brin uses the variations to show the degree of 'uplift' and reversion of each member of the crew at each moment.

I've been meaning to read this for so long, I actually have a paperback of it on my shelf from a yard sale and just haven't gotten to it yet...

 

[iwatchus]

The robots in interstellar also had personality that are a good starting point to think from.

 

[Britva415]

It may be worth looking at David Brin's brilliant 'Startide Rising', an award winning Sci-Fi novel from decades ago. The cast includes uplifted dolphins speaking a mixture of advanced and more primal poetry-based languages, humans, a variety of alien civilizations (mostly trying to capture the human and dolphin crew), and a computer. Each are given their own distinctive voices through the form, punctuation and special characters, and ways of forming concepts. The dolphin speech is just astounding IMHO, as Brin uses the variations to show the degree of 'uplift' and reversion of each member of the crew at each moment.

If the “form” (whatever that means), the punctuation and the special characters were reverted to their normal plain-text renderings, would the story still work?

 

[Actingup]

If the “form” (whatever that means), the punctuation and the special characters were reverted to their normal plain-text renderings, would the story still work?

Yes. And by 'form' I meant the constructions - the haiku or plain speech, the rhythms and rhymes, the words chosen, and so on. I'm not enough of a poet to describe this properly!

I've been meaning to read this for so long, I actually have a paperback of it on my shelf from a yard sale and just haven't gotten to it yet...

Well, just get on with it and we can compare notes! And you don't need to have read the first novel in the trilogy, which is decent enough but really just sets up the mad universe that Startide Rising and its equally entertaining companion, The Uplift War, occur in.

 

[PennyThompson]

Well, just get on with it and we can compare notes! And you don't need to have read the first novel in the trilogy, which is decent enough but really just sets up the mad universe that Startide Rising and its equally entertaining companion, The Uplift War, occur in.

*and in that exact moment, Penny suddenly understood why people like being dommed by a daddy.*

 

[Actingup]

*and in that exact moment, Penny suddenly understood why people like being dommed by a daddy.*

[SPOILER]
(reply redacted to comply with site policies)
[/SPOILER]

 

[PennyThompson]

[SPOILER]
(reply redacted to comply with site policies)
[/SPOILER]

What does that mean??
*chases acting down the street*
what did you mean by that!!

 

[NuclearFairy]

Dang, I almost feel like I missed something steamy.

 

[jsmiam]

Okaaaay, well into the writing the Great Erotic Novel and have a question for those, if not Older, then at least Wiser than myself. (Objectively, that's not all that hard - just work with me.)

It's post-singularity and there are two main characters, one a young woman and the other the world computer, oh, call it 'Unicomp'. Computer voices in movies have always been just slightly out of step with human voices. Be it the shrill "Stair-Il-Ize!" of a rogue Star Trek satellite to the inhumanly human measured tones of the bearded Programmer in The Matrix, good ones have always been a bit distinctive. So, is there a way to express this in writing, here?

The obvious answer is to use my superlative writing skills, otherwise sticking to the Chicago Manual of Style. Yes, yes, got it. But aside from that?

Putting Unicomp's words all in caps would be superdistinctive, but also distracting, as would all italics or - ick! - all in bold. Small caps might work but that's not on the approved list.

Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

Linking to the typing speed the keyboard tangent last week, Unicomp is a small business in Lexington Ky that bought the machinery and is a descendent of the factory that made the original IBM (then Lenovo) buckling spring keyboard.

So whatever you write, be sure the keys click very loudly!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Fancy typology in a story would be very distracting for me as a reader. I can't think of a single mainstream novel depicting a speaking computer where anything other than normally punctuated dialogue is used.

(ITYM typography, not typology?)

I think use of typographical cues in books is more common than it used to be, probably due to technological changes. I recall one author talking about how 20-30 years ago it was expensive just to typeset an "è" for a French character, but modern publishing tech makes that a lot easier; if you can render it on the screen, you can print it.

Outside of comics it's rare to use typography to convey stuff about how a character sounds, but it does happen now and then. For instance:

- Tamsyn Muir, "Gideon the Ninth".

But Muir only does this very occasionally, and I think it'd get annoying if used frequently. I do occasionally encounter Zalgo text to indicate weird voices caused by things like ḑ̸̀e̵̮̔m̶̝̚o̷̎͜ǹ̴̞i̶̛̠c̶̝̏ ̵͇̀p̸͔̕ő̶̩s̷̳͝s̸̹̈́e̸̪͗ş̴̅s̷̛̰į̴̐o̸̹͆n̶͕̔, but not that I can recall in anything commercially published.

What I see more often is the use of typography to signal different modes of communication. Pratchett's Death is an obvious example; his "speech" is marked in small caps, because he's speaking directly to the listener's mind rather than via the ears.

Martha Wells' "Murderbot" series features several bot/construct characters. When speaking aloud they use standard quotes just like everybody else. But those characters and many humans are also capable of communicating via "the feed" (telepathy via wifi) and that's often intercut with vocalised speech, so Wells uses italics to distinguish:


- Martha Wells, "Artificial Condition" (Murderbot #2)

I'm also seeing things like font change and indentation used to mark out a written text:


- Aliette de Bodard, "The Red Scholar's Wake"

- Gideon the Ninth again.

In this particular case, I think the best way to handle it would be the same way one would handle a character with a speech impediment or a Swedish accent or whatever, not through typography but through description.

 

[SimonDoom]

I would suggest not doing anything. Have the computer talk like a person and don't use any special formatting or descriptions. This is the way it's likely to be. The technology exists already for computers to talk to people in a normal human voice. The "Star Trek" computer voice today sounds silly. If you want to give the computer a special voice, then convey it through WHAT the computer says rather than how the computer says it.

 

[Actingup]

What does that mean??
*chases acting down the street*
what did you mean by that!!

<evil laugh> I guess you’ll find out in the basement, young miss. <add bass drop to soundtrack>