When you think about “AI,” what springs to mind? Perhaps we recall the haunting, unwieldy 2001 film “AI” featuring Haley Joel Osment as the wistful android child, David. Director Stanley Kubrick passed the baton in 1995, and the film was completed under Steven Spielberg. Like Kubrick’s earlier sci-fi epic, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “AI” explores themes of man’s quest for meaning, the search for a God/higher being, for other intelligent life in the universe. And when our curiosity veers into the creation of sentient life from inanimate material, just where might this ultimately lead us and what would be our obligations to these creations? Or, more likely these days, we’re just pissed off when a Google search yields AI-assisted results presenting patently unreliable information disingenuously presented in a distastefully authoritative manner.
The term Artificial Intelligence is, in fact, largely a misnomer, implying that there is a sentient entity that exists in machine form. Where does this idea of computers being “intelligent” spring from? From the earliest days of computing, the question arose as to whether computers could actually think. Certainly they were whizzes at computation—mathematical operations forming the foundation of their operation, all interfaces with computers relying on a binary numerical form. As they became more sophisticated, the question became more controversial.
In the absence of a clear definition of what constitutes “thinking,” British researcher Alan Turing devised “The Turing Test” in 1950. Subjects interacted, remotely, with both a human who replied to their questions, and a computer doing the same. If the subject was unable to determine which was which, then the computer passed the test, and was deemed to be “as smart as a human.” This assumption, that the ability to respond to requests in a convincingly human manner implies a kind of sentience, seems to be at the root of all subsequent misunderstanding about the “intelligence” of machines. The fact that computers have been, and continue to be, exhaustively trained by humans to fool other humans, is now coming back to bite us. While these new computer programs and the machines that run them are vastly more sophisticated — able to process complex data with dazzling speed — there’s just no there there. My dog may not be able to multiply numbers, or analyze data, but Buster’s grasp of life is infinitely greater than any tangle of metal and silicon.
The seeds for AI were sown in 1958 by Cornell researcher Frank Rosenblatt, whose “perceptron” was inspired by the neurons in the human brain. The difference between AI-powered computers and traditional models lies in their use of “Neural Networks,” a programming system of powerful interconnected microprocessors,“neural nodes,” working together in layers to enable the rapid processing of data. That these components were inspired by, and named for, parts of the human brain does not mean they are in any way analogous to our own brains.
Increasingly, AI powered computers are capable, however, of independent learning, that is, the machine learning from its own mistakes. Alarmingly, some AI programs, or “agents,” have not only been programmed to learn, they have also been entrusted to take action. As computers make decisions about how they work independently from human feedback, researchers are increasingly less confident about fully understanding what the choices being made by AI involve, or may result in. Out of that fear have sprung dozens of great screenplays. As things currently stand, not only are AI responses often flat-out wrong, but stress tests have demonstrated AI deliberately lying to and threatening researchers. Shades of HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space Odyssey”? “Sorry, Dave…”
We are increasingly accustomed to the blurring of boundaries between the real and the virtual. Immersive art experiences, such as Meow Wolf, has been around for decades. We can visit exhibitions and attend talks virtually, around the world. For artists, computers and, yes, at times AI, have become increasingly integrated into their working process, like it or not. Exhibition calls now fairly routinely request disclosure if AI was used in the creation of an artwork. Do not dismiss such wariness.
Artists already approach this new technology in vastly different ways. Spearheading the cutting edge is Refik Anadol Studio, based in Los Angeles. Anadol has a background in media arts, and imprinted on “Bladerunner” at an early age. He seemingly never let go. His “Living Architecture” (2025), recently on view at the Guggenheim Bilbao, uses Frank Gehry’s iconic architecture as both subject and canvas. An AI-powered video transforms the biomorphic structures into hypnotic, immersive three-dimensional patterns, their brilliant colors and complexity are dazzling and seductive. Anadol, along with his team, is now completing an ambitious project, “Dataland,” an AI museum, scheduled to open this year in LA.
Other artists grapple more critically with the moral implications of evolving technology. Lynn Hershman Leeson has explored the intersection of computers, feminism, cyborgs, and AI in a body of work spanning six decades. Leeson’s 2025 show “Of Humans, Cyborgs, and AI” at the Nevada Art Museum included the dystopian four-part video cycle, “Cyborgian Rhapsody” (2023), exploring concerns such as online alter egos, privacy, and gender.
More confrontational, and on the front line for us fellow humans, Trevor Paglen has long created conceptual, photo and video-based art that exposes and critiques the nefarious worlds of government surveillance and the increasing intrusion that results. This can be seen in works such as “They Took the Faces From the Accused and the Dead…(SD18)” (2020). Paglen’s work sheds light on the darkest corners of AI research and technology.
Stephanie Dinkins’ work raises awareness of the fact that the “intelligence” behind AI largely appears to be white and male, with every aspect of AI grounded in that perspective. “Conversations with Bina 48” (2014-ongoing) offers a thought-provoking interchange between the artist and a robotic head and torso, modeled on a middle aged black woman. Dinkins’ current “Data Trust” at San Jose ICA [Morris’ full review will appear soon—Ed.] explores our willingness, or reluctance, to share information with digital interfaces that presumably fall into the hands of our old friend, AI. Dinkins envisions a more supportive model, where the power of technology might be harnessed to benefit, rather than exploit, communities at risk.
Artificial Intelligence proceeds on task, and its agents necessarily act without any moral compass, , despite corporate evasion of these serious concerns. Already countless humans are suffering from real AI-induced hardships as its implementation bears its share of bitter fruit. Visual and performing artists, being replaced by machines as computer programs enable untrained users to appropriate sophisticated skills, are fighting back. A California law aimed at preventing the use of copyrighted material to train AI (AB 2013) just took effect. This kind of action will be increasingly essential as the frenzy to replace human workers with AI picks up speed.
AI may enable some spectacular art, as well as breathtaking scientific advances, yet at what price? In January, 2025, a disturbing “Newsweek” article discussed the resignation of OpenAI executives who were themselves frightened by the pace at which AI development was moving. Alarmingly, at the deepest level, as discussed in “MIT Technology Review,” it appears perhaps no one fully understands just how an AI program works, including its developers. Let’s put it in charge … what could go wrong? AI, while unpredictable, is not the true threat. It’s those profit-motivated human agents urging us to relinquish our liberty to some mindless automation that we truly need to fear.
Last fall, San Francisco welcomed the much-ballyhooed “Dreamforce 2025,” Salesforce’s big AI conference. Salesforce’s chair and CEO Marc Benioff led off the event on the heels of his endorsing the deployment of National Guard to impose order in SF, a stance he has since recanted. As hotels and restaurants rake in the bucks, AI naysayers might have to just look the other way. Now I’ve always loved robots, and, like Lieutenant Uhura, perhaps secretly longed for an android body. But, as a wise Jedi warrior once said, “These are not the ‘droids you’re looking for …” No, not by a long shot.
