Rebecca Mott

Whether obviously or subversively, algorithms influence our decisions and behavior. Machine learning feeds our minds and directs our attention as we browse social media and perform simple internet searches. Hidden behind layers of purposeful obfuscation, immense power resides in the hands of those who produce and control these systems while the majority of the public lacks the knowledge needed to respond or assert agency in their creation and management. To overcome these barriers, artists must demand and create the resources needed to direct the future of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, in particular. We possess an opportunity and a responsibility to increase the diversity of voices that will shape the future, and this requires substantial advocacy and labor. To that end, I believe that we must establish a precedent of providing open-source resources and education about AI so that it evolves into an accessible and comprehensible tool guided by society and not solely by a few. Likewise, artists must investigate and interact with these technologies in order to demonstrate their ethical potential. In support of my proposal, AI+ART aims to provide a network of written analysis, accessible resources, and documentation of my own experiences as a painter working with AI. Within this framework, I consider some of the major misnomers and assumptions about AI and art, discuss a few of the ethical dilemmas linked to the use of AI, examine the legacies of artists who have collaborated with AI, and perform my own practice of curiosity, inquiry, and accountability as I consider how artists might re-imagine and reinvent the future of AI.