The Project:
The introduction of AI into the workplace is often discussed with slight anxiety. Is it going to abolish our jobs? Is it going to replace me in my work? Even with the promise of shorter working hours, the elimination of manual labor nobody wants to do and with all the sustainability & economical benefits, we continue to feel uneasy in accepting giving over our labor to AI.
I had the chance to collaborate with a research group SFI CONFIRM Centre, who develops AI for smart manufacturing. I had often wanted to know what Artificial Intelligence really is: how is it made, how does it function, what is in the blackbox? With these questions in mind, I took the opportunity to learn how to make an AI from scratch and created a high-low tech embroidered neural network that performs a simple machine learning task.
I started off the project by saying “I want to wear an AI”. Instead of observing fearfully from a distance, this is my attempt to opt for proximity. I imagined this as something of an offering, of my body to a ghost that does not have a body of its own. I will become possessed by this intelligent ghost.
About the project title:
The rather long title “Artificial Intelligence and its False Lies” was conceived by translating “Artificial Intelligence” ten times with randomly selected languages on Google Translate. In the end, I was left with “False Lies”… in actuality, a truth?!
Is it the AI behind this translation program that is witty and cynical, resulting in giving this ambiguous double negation? Or is it me perceiving a poetic tone in a simple lost-in-translation mistake?
The collaboration:
The project “Artificial Intelligence and its False Lies” is an artistic project of Mika Satomi, one half of the KOBAKANT, in collaboration with the SFI CONFIRM Centre for Smart manufacturing and SFI INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics research group at the University College Cork, Ireland under the Vertigo.STARTS Residencies program.
This project is funded by the Vertigo.STARTS Residencies of the European Commission, based on technological elements from the SFI Confirm Centre for Smart manufacturing and SFI Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Ireland.
