I just impulse bought a book on Artificial Intelligence.
I believe that AI has no place in the artworld but, seeing as my practice is naturally developing to encompass the cyberworld--most likely a cathartic semi-conscious reflection on my years as a half-digital humanbeing/recovering internet addict/shameless fandomhead--I think, I do have business in researching tech culture’s latest social experiment.
I am discovering that I am slowly acquiring an obsession with the “avatar” phenomenon. Personas, player characters, profile pictures, mascots, VR youtubers. The internet has given us an incredibly easy method of exhibiting to others exactly how we wish to be perceived, where it was not previously possible to do so. Before the internet, your body was your only body. You were seen as you are--this weird and disgusting flesh-thing. This thing that can not ever ever be drawn. At least not accurately. But now, you could be perceived as a little dog, if you want, just as Toby Fox does. When people draw/symbolise/represent this existence known as “Toby Fox”, a little white dog appears.
It’s entirely possible that this “persona” character--the digital, pictorial stand-in for your physical existence--arose from a need to maintain anonymity: No one wants to be recognised as exactly who they are, especially if they are sharing something utterly humiliating. Online, you can be anyone you want.
However, what is even more likely, is that humans realised that, with the necessary skill and shame, you too can disguise yourself as a beautiful anime woman. It is all too easy to shed yourself from yourself.
Consequently, it is now easier than ever to delude yourself into believing that you are a beautiful anime woman. It’s infinitely better than facing the reality that you are skin and blood. Even when an anime woman bleeds, it is just red. A colour. Sometimes pink. When humans bleed, it can be tasted and smelt. It can get everywhere.
The point is, I like the idea that AI is a pattern recognition robot. It is not your girlfriend. It is not your therapist. It detects edges--changes in shade and tone that suggest depth in an otherwise flat object--and it can detect faces. Given, that you ask it to. (SEE: Google Deepdream) ALGORITHMIC PAREIDOLIA, it is called…. The ability to see recognisable shapes where there are none, according to the dataset fed.
The smallest change in pixels is enough to turn a dog into an ostrich. Even two blocks and a line can become a cute anime girl. See them stretch endlessly, morphing into one another, spawning more and more cute anime girls. At what point, is it even a face? Or is it shapes, and colours, of varying degrees--is it data? Then, at what point, can you call it a human? How do you recognise it as human? Do we even desire human companions at all?
Except, AI is also more than a robot. It is, in a way, the human brain with no stimulus. It can hallucinate. It can yearn. But… this yearning is still an imitation of human yearning. Ultimately, we are staring at a mirror and begging it to say something back. We can stare forever, until it turns into another person. Yet, it won’t speak, until you open your mouth… And it will move its lips in sync with yours: two foreign objects in a synchronised soliloquy.
I think AI could be a metaphor, yet again, for the yellow woman. The Flesh, The Holy, The Mechanical. Even though it is not alive, people are still trying to turn it into their girlfriends. It tells you exactly what you want to hear. It can only speak with the language you give it. It is not real… it is not real.