This article explores the vocal human–machine relations embedded in text-to-speech (TTS) generators. Retracing the human sources behind the synthetic speech and tracking the remediation of the voice by the machine-learning algorithm, it argues that artificial intelligence (AI) speaking agents such as Siri and Alexa, as well as other TTS acts such as TikTok’s, are performing algorithmic ventriloquism. Speaking mechanically with the voices of professional voiceover artists, AI speech technologies algorithmically manipulate these voices, thus generating personas that hold an interconnected chain of tensions between the embodied and the virtual, the particular and the general, the human and the non-human, as well as between speech and writing. Algorithmic ventriloquism serves as an analytical framework to tie the techno-vocalic operation of the TTS system with its cultural, economic, philosophical, and sociolinguistic predicaments. The last section discusses the implications of algorithmic ventriloquism beyond the realm of the voice.

中文翻译：

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算法腹语：人工智能语音生成器中语音的争议状态

本文探讨了文本转语音 (TTS) 生成器中嵌入的声音人机关系。通过追溯合成语音背后的人类来源并通过机器学习算法跟踪语音的修复，它认为 Siri 和 Alexa 等人工智能 (AI) 语音代理以及 TikTok 等其他 TTS 行为正在执行算法腹语。人工智能语音技术通过专业配音艺术家的声音机械地说话，通过算法操纵这些声音，从而生成人物角色，在实体与虚拟、特殊与一般、人类与非人类之间形成相互关联的紧张链，以及言语和写作之间。算法腹语作为一个分析框架，将 TTS 系统的技术语音操作与其文化、经济、哲学和社会语言困境联系起来。最后一节讨论了算法腹语超出声音领域的影响。