30 JANUARY 1971, Page 24

Speaking machines

Sir: I bring to the notice of your reviewer Anthony Kenny (9 Jan- uary) that machines do not speak. They are sometimes designed to generate a programme of sounds in imitation of speech.

Mr Kenny's machine no more 'speaks' than it 'reads' his weight. The humanisation of artifacts and the attribution to them of qualities belonging to their designers could be called 'the bathetic fallacy'—or, perhaps, better still 'mechanimism'. Cecil Smelt 7 SyIva Court, Putney Hill, London sw 1 5