The Potential of Arts and Culture for Europe's AI Strategy

Our initiative explores the potential of arts and culture to shape our future with AI. We welcome EU programs like STARTS that bring together artists, scientists and engineers to develop more human-centred technologies. Nevertheless, we believe that the potential of arts and culture could be capitalised on much stronger for the EU's general AI strategy.

As by now, we see at least the following ways in which arts and culture contribute to a wonderful future with AI.

  1. Arts and culture influence the course of technology.Did science-fiction only "guess" the future of AI by chance? Could we induce a desired future by creating utopian science-fiction today?
  2. Arts and culture make AI more inspired.Would AI have been possible without artists imagining it first? Could we harness the creativity of arts and culture to promote innovation again?
  3. Arts and culture make AI more accessible and trustworthy.Is it beneficial to visualise invisible AI technologies with pictures of electronic brains and frightening humanoids? Could we find better representations that facilitate trustworthy AI applications?

We would be very curious about your valuation and ideas!

Yours, Max

Komentáře

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Vytvořil uživatel Elio PENNISI dne So, 25/05/2019 - 12:00

Art and Culture (capitals to mean high-grade activity) can indeed recur to AI to help human talent to thrive still more. AI as an artistic substitute would be a fake in the same way as fake news today plagues social networks.

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Vytvořil uživatel Sylvie Berthon dne Čt, 30/05/2019 - 21:35

Artists are often whistleblowers for society. They can have a huge impact on our perception of everyday things. Would people be afraid of AI without the images science-fiction books and movies anchored in our minds ? Artists show us progress with a different point of view and give us pause : see the work on captcha offered by Aram Bartholl (Are you Human) or more recently Damjanski (Humans not invited). Concerning trustworthy AI, I would say that artists have a role to play to encourage vigilance.

In reply to by Sylvie Berthon

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Vytvořil uživatel Maximilian J. … dne Po, 03/06/2019 - 00:58

Wow, thanks for those hints. I especially love that work by Damjanski. Amazing and disturbing... Last week I visited ITU's AI FOR GOOD conference. They dedicated several sessions to the potential of sci-fi. Among the speakers there were "futurists" like Madeline Ashby, a sci-fi writer who is hired by tech companies to investigate possible uses and misuses of their innovations. In the evening, the artist Christian Mio Loclaire gave the most accessible and instructive presentation about AI, which I have ever seen. He presented in the Human Rights Room of the Palace of Nations and earned standing ovations by the global audience. There are also artists working on ethical approaches to AI that shall serve as an alternative to "classical" guidelines and principles. I am really curious about things to come...