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.

中文翻译：

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女权主义自动化：机器人可以拥有女权主义政治吗？


本文探讨了“女权主义聊天机器人”作为通过自动化进行激进主义的工具。此类机器人旨在让用户就女权主义问题进行自动交流。本文首先假设聊天机器人像所有技术一样具有政治性，并且自动化（包括聊天机器人的自动通信）是一个女权主义问题。我们研究女权主义聊天机器人如何利用自动化来解决社会不平等和偏见。从概念上讲，本文利用技术女权主义和交叉性作为理解聊天机器人反映激进分子担忧的潜力的镜头。使用文化（案例）研究方法分析了三种不同的聊天机器人：F'xa、性别薪酬差距机器人和 Betânia。分析表明，女权主义聊天机器人通过让用户参与有关其社会技术风险的交流并利用自动化来激发女权主义（数据）行动主义来反对主流自动化。然而，设计此类机器人仍然面临挑战，部分原因是平台依赖性和复杂交叉问题自动化的限制。