Ryn Forquer: Blogpost #3 - The Week in Art: "Artificial Intelligence: The Museum Perspective, the Artist's View, the Photography Controversy"

In The Week in Art podcast episode titled “Artificial Intelligence: The Museum Perspective, the Artist’s View, the Photography Controversy,” the hot topic of AI is discussed with a museum curator, an artist, and a photographer. Because of the length and depth of the episode, I'm only summarizing the first third of the podcast: host Ben Luke's interview with Noam Segal, associate curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, on the topic of AI and its impact on the art world. Segal shares her thoughts about AI and its abilities and limitations. She specifically talks about the limitation of AI compared to the human experience– AI lacks a bodily experience of the world, and she believes that this limits how AI systems can process and understand the world, therefore limiting its ability to learn at the same capacity that humans learn. One fascinating point she brings up is AI’s inability to answer nuanced situations based on cultural, societal, or contextual differences. She uses the example of a Danish couple visiting New York– in Denmark, it is perfectly normal to leave your baby in a stroller outside, in the cold. The Danish couple, unaware of cultural/societal differences between Denmark and New York, did this in New York, and subsequently, the authorities were called. Segal suggests that people though people may begin to use AI systems such as ChatGPT to answer questions like, “Can I leave my baby outside in a stroller?” AI is limited in that it is currently unable to give such culture-specific answers. 

Segal also points out that the history of AI and art began long before many would say– even back to the 60s, when artist Harold Cohen created the drawing algorithm, Aaron. Though this kind of AI, called symbolic AI, she points out, is vastly different than the king of AI we think of today, her point is clear: computer-generated art is not a new invention!


Harold Cohen at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1979. via Harold Cohen Estate

Segal, however, considers the roots of Modern AI to have begun during the 80s-90s, when artists such as Nam June Paik were creating works such as “Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii." Though not a computer-generated work, Segal likens the piece to some AI art, in that Paik's piece was intended to capture the idea of “simultaneity, of accelerated movement and transmission of data that is multi-directional.”


Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, 1995, fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood; color, sound, approx. 15 x 40 x 4 feet (Smithsonian American Art Museum). via Nam June Paik Estate.


Segal mentions how AI may make specific jobs more manageable– such as helping teachers customize worksheets based on students’ specific difficulties. Later, the idea of artists creating their own AI systems is discussed as a way that AI would lighten the load of work for creatives, without entirely replacing or usurping their role.

However, there are several drawbacks that Segal highlights during her conversation with Luke, as well. One drawback is that AI has substantial environmental effects because it relies on large amounts of data, consuming significant energy from server farms. The costs that result from these carbon emissions are more significant than that even of NFTs. Several large AI companies have partnered with fossil fuel companies, as well, contributing to more pollution.




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