Feminist automation: Can bots have feminist politics?

Abstract

This article examines ‘feminist chatbots’ as tools for activism through automation. Such bots aim to engage users in automated communication on feminist concerns. The article starts from the assumption that chatbots, like all technologies, have politics and that automation, including the automated communication of chatbots, is a feminist issue. We investigate how feminist chatbots mobilise automation to address societal inequalities and bias. Conceptually, the article draws on technofeminism and intersectionality as lenses for understanding the potential of chatbots to reflect activist concerns. Three different chatbots are analysed, using a cultural (case) studies approach: F’xa, Gender Pay Gap Bot and Betânia. The analysis suggests that feminist chatbots oppose mainstream automation by engaging users in communication about its sociotechnical risks and using automation to inspire feminist (data) activism. Yet challenges remain in designing such bots, partly because of platform dependencies and the limits of automating complex intersectional issues.