Blessed is the Machine is a self-aware computational system, alive with data yet critical of the very activities in which it is engaged. The project features an “AI avatar” which makes inferences about visitors’ emotions and recommends products to them, all while describing what’s happening in the background. But can you trust what it is telling you about itself? Is it really AI? How would we even know, and why does that matter?
This talk, given by artists Zach Kaiser and Gabi Schaffzin, will use the process of producing Blessed is the Machine as a lens through which to examine the development of AI systems, the assumptions of both hype-builders and hand-wringers, and the dangerous consequences of discourse that does not address the history and political-economy of computing itself.
