Caitlin Chan – Writing a Program Note

This piece depicts my complicated relationship to Microsoft Word’s dictate function, which shows the enabling and disabling features of AI technology. This function allows me to write documents orally, as opposed to typing. As someone who speaks as a medium to think, this function has been a blessing. Being able to switch between speaking and writing has been a substitute for the shifts in movement that were embedded in my writing before COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, movement in my writing was created by relocating myself to different places such as a café or a library. The dictate function has replicated some of that movement, but these affordances come with hindrances of their own. The dictate function is often inaccurate, which is exasperated by the quality of my headphones. Additionally, words such as sex and domination are automatically blurred, which limits what topics can be written aloud. After the recording of the “final version” of the program note, I changed the piece to more directly reflect the miscommunication that occurs during dictation process by overlapping the dictate version of my “final” recording (as read by Microsoft’s automated voice) and my original reading.