Image Credits: 19th century shallowfake porn by Dominika Cupkova, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
**Webinar: Archival Images of AI - 10 July**
Archival Images of AI
What kind of imagery do we need to effectively communicate about artificial intelligence (AI)? The currently used visual tropes - glowing brains, anthropomorphised robots and walls of descending code - create a harmful understanding of AI research and its impact. They embed these technologies with a mystical, almost god-like quality which shapes the way the public and researchers talk about it and understand it.
But AI is much more about what is not represented in these visual clichés - it is about the human labour of annotating datasets, the accountability of AI developers, the material qualities of hardware powering AI systems. Can we take inspiration from cultural heritage collections to create better representations of AI that make these aspects visible?
Archival Images of AI investigate how we might use archival materials to create culturally-relevant visual narratives about AI. In collaboration with designers, image-makers, and critical AI and culture researchers, we will develop practices for reusing existing imagery to create new images of AI that allow us to have much richer and nuanced conversations.
Inspired by Better Images of AI research, our focus is not just on creating better images of AI, but also on fostering a more inclusive and culturally informed dialogue surrounding artificial intelligence. We will reflect on both the narratives we wish to construct about AI and those embedded in archival collections that can lend us a critical lens on AI development.
The outcome of the project will be a collection of open-source tools and guidelines for media professionals, cultural heritage organisations or anyone else who wants to communicate about AI more responsibly.
Follow the project diary here.
Partnership and the role of Sound & Vision
Archival Images of AI is a result of an ongoing collaboration between Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision, AIxDESIGN and Better Images of AI. In 2023, the three teams collaborated to commission a series of brand new images for the Better Images of AI library representing power dynamics, accountability and human labour in and around AI. The current project is an extension of ideas developed in this initiative only this time with a focus on the potential role of digital cultural heritage in the process of image making.
The project is funded by the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision.
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