An international initiative integrating humanities into the core of AI development, led by The Alan Turing Institute, University of Edinburgh and the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC-UKRI) with partner institutions in the UK and North America. The Doing AI Differently initiative challenges traditional approaches to AI development by positioning humanities perspectives as integral—rather than supplemental—to technical innovation.

Uncanny Machines

Alan Turing Institute & Scottish AI Alliance, 2022-24

Research on a complete 'experiential AI' system developed with and for artists and climate advocates. This integrates data stream and forecasting pipelines for selected climate features, combined with AI processing engines to manipulate images, words, sounds and numbers using the climate data and forecasts as the exploratory parameters. This enables the artists to expose the operation of machine learning algorithms, and explore the link between global-scale data and human-scale “ground truth” or reality.

The New Real: Next Generation Intelligent Experiences

Creative Scotland, 2022-24

A strategic project with Creative Scotland on AI, Creativity and the Arts. A new generation of powerful AI tools open new creative possibilities for artists and fundamentally reshape creative workflows. But with new capabilities, come challenges. Current AI models are trained on massive datasets scraped from the Internet without permission or fair pay for the original creators. There are issues around authorship, consent, fair pay, energy use, harmful bias, and misinformation. The project has four strands: 1. Policy: Creative futures; 2. Infrastructure: Accessible and interpretable AI; 3. Practice: Next generation intelligent experiences; 4. Skills: Critical AI literacies.

The New Real Observatory

Turing 2.0/EPSRC, 2021-22

Research on a complete 'experiential AI' system developed with and for artists and climate advocates. This integrates data stream and forecasting pipelines for selected climate features, combined with AI processing engines to manipulate images, words, sounds and numbers using the climate data and forecasts as the exploratory parameters. This enables the artists to expose the operation of a machine learning algorithm, and explore the link between global-scale data and what we call “ground truth” or reality.

Resilience in the New Real

AHRC, 2020-22

This project will support the UK's world-leading cultural sector to both delight audiences and develop critical literacies in the New Real, to enable post-COVID-19 recovery. It aims to equip cultural producers and audiences with the knowledge and tools to navigate the ways systems make use of our data, how truth and experience are constructed online, the exclusions that are created, and the ways value circulates. Funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Experience in the New Real

SFC/Data+Design Lab, 2020-21

This project explores how the design of festival experiences fuelled by AI can equip cultural organisations to engage audiences in the New Real. A pilot festival experience will be developed to test strategies for festival and cultural events to generate new forms of event and activity that combine the physical and digital. This will focus on climate action and local understanding of global climate data. Funded by Scottish Funding Council as a part of Design Lab.

The New Real Pilots

Edinburgh Futures Institute, 2019-21

Pilot art projects to investigate the entanglements between humans and machines, and explore how experiential methods can reveal insights on future scenarios for ethical and responsible AI.

Experiential AI Artist Residencies

EU AI Lab & Edinburgh Data Driven Innovation Programme, 2019

Supporting an artist, designer or artists’ collective to create new dimensions in their artistic practice through their encounters with the world of AI, and explore the fairness, morality and transparency of AI systems.

Experiential AI: A strategic vision and capability for AI in Scotland

Creative Scotland, 2019-21

Research and development to support and enable data-led transformation in Scotland's creative sector, and open a window for artists, audiences and citizens to engage with AI on a palpable level.

The New Real Research

Publications

Underpinning Research

Research Projects

Doing AI Differently