The Great AI Swindle
Synthetic Truth

“I think I coined it,” Werner Herzog notes, referring to his expression “ecstasy of truth.” When you step outside of your own existence and experience some sort of illumination, Paul Holdengräber digs deeper, “you enter the sublime.”

On May 2, 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike after negotiations with the major Hollywood studios failed. One of the central issues was the studios’ ability to use AI. At the outset, it seemed like a formless debate with no clear precedent. Even those on the picket line were doubtful the strike would yield any meaningful gains with AI. But screenwriters are experts at forming a narrative.

Manuel Felguérez was a Mexican painter and sculptor whose work transcended conventional boundaries by exploring the synergy between his artistic vision and technology. His emblematic project The Aesthetic Machine stands as a beacon in the convergence between art and artificial intelligence, unraveling new creative possibilities.

Virtual assistants, figures of governance, deities. The personification of artificial intelligence (AI) can take on any guise, including that of authority — with all that it entails in terms of deepfakes, fake news, and other related challenges. 

Does artificial intelligence have the potential to develop a consciousness? What about religious concepts such as the soul? How human can machines actually become? Artificial intelligence expert Ralf Otte explores these questions.

In artificial intelligence, an alignment problem arises when a system’s behaviour doesn’t uphold the intended values of its designers, particularly when AI systems are used to solve sticky social problems.

The question about truth is much more than mere sophistry — it has a fundamentally orientational function for humans. Leonhard Emmerling investigates a concept with multiple meanings. 

The fear of machines is nothing new. From early examples of murderous robots in popular culture to ChatGPT’s untruthfulness, Priscilla Jolly takes us on a journey through the dangerous world of deceitful machinery. 

Language is capable of enveloping the masses, and new technologies are creating persuasive masks. Are we ready to detect political manipulation?

Due to the training methods behind large language models (LLMs), they lack any understanding of truth, ergo their knack for spreading misinformation. But it’s important to emphasize that LLMs, like any technology, represent a powerful tool whose impact depends on how we utilize it. David Dao explores some of the ways that new AI technologies could weaken — or strengthen — our democracies.

The German photomedia artist Boris Eldagsen won the Sony World Photography Awards in April 2023. The unusual thing: He entered with an AI-generated piece and ultimately rejected the prize. Eldagsen weighs in on AI and creativity. 

In this online discussion, AI expert Dennis Kastrup, photomedia artist Boris Eldagsen, physics professor Jessica Huelgas, and multidisciplinary artist Suzanne Kite question how human and artificial intelligence can work together and how creative processes are evolving.

Bogus audios imitating politicians’ voices, AI-augmented robo-calling or fictional TV anchors: artificial intelligence offers a magnitude of new ways to spread disinformation. In an era of global crises, it represents a genuine threat to democracy.
 

In our modern world, nothing can escape the digital revolution. The way we commute, communicate and consume is controlled by code, and that code is growing increasingly intelligent. But artificial intelligence is by no means as fair or neutral as it may seem.
 

How can artists use AI and machine learning to their advantage? An interview with Jesse Engel, Research Scientist at Google Brain’s Magenta Project.

What is normal? And what constitutes a normal face? Our brains are constantly analyzing and classifying every face we encounter, and we as people are not alone in this. A whole field of science and technology analyzes these sub-attentive cognitive processes and breaks them down into statistical normalities. Through machine learning, facial recognition is even being used to categorize and predict human behavior.