The rise of speculative devices : hooking up with the bots of Ashley Madison

Light, BA

Abstract

I attend to two areas of increasing significance in relation to Web 2.0 since its announcement in 2005. The first is a focus on the non-human in digital media research, and the second is the normalisation of dating apps in society. Building upon ideas from speculative design and speculative method, I introduce the idea of speculative devices, those things that are set in place based on a conjecture of an outcome. Drawing upon a case study of Ashley Madison, generated using a walkthrough method, I demonstrate how the speculative devices of bots and profiles can operate, and why. I argue we need to give careful thought to how our research and practice is understood, and conducted where speculative devices are concerned.

Citation

Light, B. (2016). The rise of speculative devices : hooking up with the bots of Ashley Madison. First Monday, 21(6), https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i6.6426

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 28, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 6, 2016
• Publication Date: Jun 6, 2016
• Deposit Date: Oct 11, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 11, 2016
• Journal: First Monday
• Electronic ISSN: 1396-0466
• Publisher: University of Illinois at Chicago Library
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 6
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i6.6426
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i6.6426
• Related Public URLs: http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm
• Additional Information: Access Information : This is an open access journal.