AI
VI
AI/VI is an interdisciplinary pilot project dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence and its roles in modern society. It is created as a pervasive mobile game that uncovers AI, and the accompanying problematics.
Acting as a guide through AI occasionally uniting the player and AI into a symbiotic metaorganism. The game has no pre-set routes or endings; the path that opens is gradually shaped by the players. The mapped points of the game open spaces between different institutions in Belgrade and problematise the role of AI in private and public life.. They represent particular thematic stations which problematise dynamic relationships in the creator-AI-user system, their functions, limitations, symbolic and practical potentials. Players continually build their relationship with AI, determining themselves with their choices and the reality they go through.
The goal of the game is to put the players in a position to re-examine the current human and algorithmic ways of decision-making and their consequences in the near future. How do we understand artificial intelligence and relate to it; what direction do we want it to take; how do we transform and shape together ourselves in the process of its creation and consumption? Through the game and with it, players can uncover their path.
The social implications, our wellbeing and the questions of the future, coexistence and symbiotic relationship of us and artificial intelligence are academically explained in the proposal of the "game library" that players collect along the way. In this way the game has an educational aspect. This uncovering and educational part further continues during picnic discussions.
AI / VI was part of Ars Electronica 2020 and their Kepler's Garden programme.
AI/VI is produced and funded by Center for promotion of Science - CPN in Serbia. It was designed by a team of professional experts from various fields gathered around a shared question — how are humans and artificial intelligence being shaped and transformed through their mutual relationship, communication, and use?
Dr Aleksandar Bulajić, Ana Popović, Isidora Pejović Blagojević, Dr Maja Maksimović, Sunčica Pasuljević Kandić
PICNIC SESSIONS
The picnic sessions represent the accompanying program of the AI/VI project and are a space for open and free conversation between citizens, players and creators of the game. They are designed as a place of opportunity to exchange experiences and reflect, both on the conceptual procedures and the specific experience the game provides. A space to delve deeper into the topic mentioned in the game and have the public actively engage in further developing the game itself. Visitors where guided through the process of demystification and speculative AI scenarios, but also introduced to the specific game paths, choices and decisions encountered during the game. Building a project within participatory practices that combine art, science and technology, we strive to involve the general public in a transdisciplinary and non-hierarchical process of thinking about the complexity of technological change and our relationship to it. How technology shapes us, what are contemporary discourses on artificial intelligence, what philosophical the questions are still relevant and how do we think about them?
Envisioned as a space for sharing we set different point or thematic triggers on various topics surrounding AI today.. So we offered food made from a recipe generated by AI, an AI astro reading, battle debating point, a QA box to ask and provide answers to all the the things you normally wouldn't dare to ask about AI and much more.
The game is based on current research in the field of artificial intelligence development as well as its impact on changes in social structures, communication, politics, economics and the environment. Fallowing on our idea of participatory and educational work we created a interactive way to observe the critical points in which technology develops and open the door to opportunistic and altruistic aspects of its application. In order to address the ubiquity of algorithms that can influence our choices, and open the question of trust and freedom in relation to decision-making we created a space for collective mapping and thinking through side activities.
Questions introduced during the game are in regards to how we will treat, create and consume AI in the future and in which direction we will direct its further development. The game is built on 7 directions of current development of artificial intelligence. Through them the player gets acquainted with the hidden infrastructures behind AI such as: Invisible aspects of AI systems, AI materiality, Conformism and consumerism of the technological age, Economics and data extraction (big data), Digital cultural heritage and knowledge archiving, Algorithmic and human control.
Based on these directions we proposed an inquiry map to interact with visitors and collectively share and ideate the future of AI.
FUTURE OF AI
COLLECTIVE
MAPPING
During a game player collects hyperlinks. They are part of the games library. Designed as an educational tool trough which players are arming themselves with knowledge resource tailored according to their individual choices throughout the game.
Taking a form of interconnected hyperlinks this repository acts as a rhizomatic web writing. Wowing of thoughts and observations that are contextually combined. Writing through hyperlinks and connecting the story through inter-textual approach. In this way the text is being created in readers mind through clicking, scrolling and individual meaning making. Based on readers choices and interest in hyperlinks presented in designated chapters, this form is allowing the reader to become an author enabling multiple variations. Always different in its context, story-line and information received thus allowing various understanding and meaning making on AI development, design and future impact on society.
AI / VI RESEARCH
WEB WRITING
AI / VI was part of the exhibition Intelligence IO that took place in the Cultural Center Magacin in September 2020. The exhibition was part of art+science lab program organized by Center for the Promotion of Science. The art+science lab exhibition and its fallowing events are part of the Center’s programme activities within the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab − AI Lab project, financed through the EU Creative Europe programme in partnership with Festival Ars Electronica.