‘AI & Me’ is a multi-piece installation that explores the interaction between artificial intelligence and human participants. It encourages contemplation about the relationship between humans and AI, particularly focusing on the themes of judgment, perception, and the human willingness to be analyzed by machines. The multi-piece installation builds up in real-time, based on the interaction with its participants.
Central to this experience is ‘The Confessional’, a candid machine that delivers an opinion about participants based on their outward appearance, designed to provoke and challenge our relationship with artificial judgment. The machine was programmed to provide honest and blunt assessments of individuals, unfiltered by human social norms or politeness.
Accompanying pieces like ‘AI Ego,’ further expand this narrative. ‘AI Ego’ displays the participants who enter ‘The Confessional’ in surreal and completely fabricated scenarios. If the machine likes someone, it dreams up pictures of those individuals doing things they’ve never done before.
The ‘AI & Me’ installation started as a collection of pieces showing how AI sees us but has turned into something more. It’s become a real eye-opener about how much we’re okay with letting a machine judge our looks, all just to find out what it thinks about us.
The way AI interprets and reimagines human participants in different scenarios offers insights into the growing influence of AI in our lives. This interaction leads to questions about the extent to which we are willing to let AI influence our perception of ourselves and others. It highlights the fine line between utilizing AI as a tool for exploration and the risk of becoming overly reliant or influenced by its judgments and interpretations. This understanding is crucial in a time when AI is becoming increasingly integrated into our daily lives, affecting our decisions, interactions, and self-perception.
At Signals 2024, visitors were able to sit and interact with the AI in person. Many would go in and come out to see the product of the AI’s imagination nearly instantly displayed on the screen for them, family, and friends to see. Featured near the center of the showroom, many visitors spent a lot of time looking and commenting on the images being displayed. Many described the experience as funny, others as interesting, and a few reflected on how they reacted differently to the comments given to them through AI versus real people.
About the Artists
Daniela + Octavian = mots
Daniela: Daniela Nedovescu is a writer and producer. She grew up playing outside when memorizing phone numbers was still a thing, but forgot all about that when she discovered the social media like. Since then, she’s obsessed with getting as many likes on her posts as she can no matter the consequences.
Octavian: Octavian Mot is an artist and director. He found out early that talking to computers is a superpower that can be harnessed – that and saving money, something he’s still struggling to harness. Now he can hold a good 10-minute monologue about filmmaking, AI, or astronomy without too much stuttering. He thinks that he lives in a simulation and often doubts the nature of his reality.
mots: We’ve been making a variety of stuff together for, surprisingly, over a decade, in a way that is often civilized and sane, but definitely not calm nor friendly. Actually, not sane, nor civilized either.