L-R (top): an archive image from Kasia Molga; an image from Alice Bucknell’s Cones of Uncertainty
L-R (bottom): images from Sarah Cistion, generated using Craiyon

The New Real: Uncanny Machines Talks

Inspirational artists explore the uncanny interplay of humans and machines

The New Real is proud to announce five original artist talks/films will premiere at this year’s Scottish AI Summit.

In 2023, The New Real announces five Development Awards have been awarded to inspirational artists to explore the uncanny interplay of humans and machines, and the social implications of recent developments in AI.

In the five films, the artists envision new horizons for human-machine creativity, help us navigate the profound challenges of our times, and explore their own creative agency when developing or using AI. Discover the ways artists can push creative boundaries with AI, and how AI can be enriched or challenged by the Arts.

Each artist tackles an urgent challenge for our times: giving voice to unheard voices in AI data; grappling with the implications of artificial superintelligence; sensing lost loved ones in small datasets; community-centred approaches to machine learning; and finding new metaphors to break open the 'black box' of AI.

The films launch at this year’s Scottish AI Summit and online on 18 March 2023. Each artist talk/film is also profiled on an Uncanny Machines film by The New Real. The winner of the full Art Commission will be announced in April 2023.

Format

Online Recorded Talks

Audience:

Public & Tech and Cultural Sector 

Date:

Talks published on 28th March 2023

Featured Artists

About The New Real

Established in 2019, The New Real is a unique hub for AI, creativity and futures research. It is a partnership between the University of Edinburgh, Alan Turing Institute, and Edinburgh’s Festivals. Its research explores how AI impacts on life at a profound level, often interacting with us in fascinating and unanticipated ways, and illuminates how emerging technology can become a creative, playful and deeply impactful part of everyday living.

The New Real team believes that art and creativity can help to radically change how we think about AI design, moving beyond the current paradigm of learning patterns from large amounts of data, to embrace human traits such as bias, disagreement, and uncertainty as a signal with creative potential rather than noise that needs to be removed.

They devise imaginative ways to experiment with new experiences, practices, infrastructures and business models, and to empower people to be agents of positive change.

What is The New Real? Learn more about it, have a peak at artworks and access our publications

The Scottish AI Alliance

Delivering Scotland’s AI Strategy Scotland’s AI Strategy. It was launched in March 2021 with a vision for Scotland to become a leader in the development and use of trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI. The Scottish AI Alliance is the body tasked with delivering this vision and the actions outlined in the strategy. It is a partnership between The Data Lab and the Scottish Government. www.scottishai.com

The Alan Turing Institute 

The Alan Turing Institute is the national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, with headquarters at the British Library. In 2017, as a result of a government recommendation, they added artificial intelligence to their remit. The Institute is named in honour of Alan Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), whose pioneering work in theoretical and applied mathematics, engineering and computing are considered to be the key disciplines comprising the fields of data science and artificial intelligence.