# Does Siri Have a Soul? Exploring Voice Assistants Through Shinto Design Fictions

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03207 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.03207/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 6 Mar 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [How Culture Shapes What People Want From AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05104/) (2024)
- [Perceptions of Sentient AI and Other Digital Minds: Evidence from the AI, Morality, and Sentience (AIMS) Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08867/) (2024)
- [Exploring Qualitative Research Using LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13298/) (2023)
- [A(I)nimism: Re-enchanting the World Through AI-Mediated Object Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25558/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

It can be difficult to critically reflect on technology that has become part of everyday rituals and routines. To combat this, speculative and fictional approaches have previously been used by HCI to decontextualise the familiar and imagine alternatives. In this work we turn to Japanese Shinto narratives as a way to defamiliarise voice assistants, inspired by the similarities between how assistants appear to 'inhabit' objects similarly to kami. Describing an alternate future where assistant presences live inside objects, this approach foregrounds some of the phenomenological quirks that can otherwise easily become lost. Divorced from the reality of daily life, this approach allows us to reevaluate some of the common interactions and design patterns that are common in the virtual assistants of the present.