How Does Artificial Intelligence ‘See’ Race? Some Recent Artistic Experiments with Machine Vision History of Art Research Seminar

Event details

Please join us for the History of Art Research Seminar “How Does Artificial Intelligence ‘See’ Race? Some Recent Artistic Experiments with Machine Vision” with Professor Chad Elias (Dartmouth College) on Wednesday, 16 October, 5-7pm in the Bowland Auditorium (Berrick Saul Building, BS/005).

Critics of artificial intelligence point to the ways in which this technology is being used to drive global-scale efficiency and surveillance programs. Tied to this is the recognition that racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination are structural to generative AI rather than simply “bugs” in the system that can be fixed as the technology evolves. In this research project I analyse the work of contemporary artists who interrogate the preconceptions that govern the development of generative AI systems. On the one hand, these artists make visible the biases and preconceptions within data training sets used to train image-centred AI platforms. The work of Minnie Atairu and Trevor Paglen sheds light on the dangerously reductive conceptions of social identity inherent in algorithmically-powered facial recognition technologies, and the ethics of the intentions that animate them. On the other hand, these artistic experiments also prompt consideration of the ways in which AI serves to denaturalize and, on some level, displace the authority granted to anthropocentric models of creativity. In line with this approach, I consider how artistic experiments with AI run counter to its normative uses within racial capitalism.