Encountering Bloody Others in Mined Reality

This article explores interpersonal and human–computer interaction in the era of big data through the lens of Martin Buber’s relational ethics. Doing theory otherwise, it analyses the importance of other voices and speech through the case of digital assistants, questioning the implications of naming them ‘companions’. Following recent proposals to ascribe legal subjectivity to synthetic agents, the article explores the effects on agency, interaction with flesh-and-blood others and democracy in an attention economy enmeshed with technologies of behavioural manipulation powered by users’ utterances that enable novel forms of social control by owners of the means of communication.