Do AIs Dream of Climate Chaos: Symbiotic AI
Xiaoyu Iris Qu (曲晓宇)
Do AIs Dream of Climate Chaos investigates the contradictions in a machine learning system. Given sufficient data, how would AI compute its existence?
To reach a general level of intelligence, a system must learn how it is situated in the environment. Though most AI systems manifest as software algorithms, they depend on a ubiquitous hardware infrastructure to exist. Given suffi- cient data, how would an AI compute its existence?
Symbiotic AI simulates an algorithm’s coexistence with the ecosystem around it. During a turbulent season, a weather forecast AI attempts to decipher the chaotic system around its data center location by exchanging knowledge with the local species. As the simulation progresses, the AI unlearns planetary, human-centric datasets and gains dynamic, adaptive, and hyper-local insights from oak trees, milkweeds, hedgehogs, butterflies, lichens, and mycorrhizal fungi—slowly forming a cybernetic language of symbiosis. The data center worker inside the simulation and its human audience are bystanders, relying on AI to translate knowledge between nature and machine in this algorithmic story.
This simulation was developed from a series of role-playing work- shops. Based on a collection of research artifacts, prompts, and embodiment exercises, the workshop participants are invited to represent different agents in the ecosystem and negotiate with the AI agent on the basis of their unique strengths and needs. Together, we want to build a believable narrative. Through collective storytelling, Do AIs Dream of Climate Chaos aims to explore connections between computation and humans—and the ecosystems they jointly endanger.
The third part of the exhibition “Driving the Human – Seven Prototypes for Eco-Social Renewal” with the topic “Speculative Ecosytems and Interspecies Collaborations”, is presented at ZKM | Karlsruhe from October 7 to November 26, 2023.
Listen to the form Design Podcast’s latest series, Driving the Human x form Design Podcast. In six episodes, participants from the Driving the Human initiative discuss the intersection of design and science.
We are excited to share four videos looking back at the Driving the Human festival, one for each day and an overall recap.
In 2022, the Driving the Human initiative met its ultimate goal of materializing the Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal.
From November 25–27, 2022, Driving the Human: 7 Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal brought to Berlin a variety of formats exploring new ways of envisioning and inhabiting the world.
At the Cybernetics Library in New York, the artists Iris Qu曲晓宇 and Chao Hui Tu held an AI symbiosis workshop, in which participants played seven nonhuman characters that collectively challenged AI-predicted climate scenarios threatening their ecosystem.
From November 25-27, 2022, Driving the Human hosts a three-day festival in Berlin marking the culmination of three years of collaboration, research and experimentation connecting disciplines between sciences and the arts.
In a conversation with artist Iris Qu曲晓宇 we speak about futuristic fictions through the lens of AI agents and the physical locations of algorithms.
Following our Berlin festival presenting 21 visions for eco-social renewal, the Driving the Human jury had the difficult task to select seven projects to be developed as prototypes throughout 2022.
The second day of our festival explored new approaches to AI and computation. Additionally, new ways of thinking about value and economy took over the stage. The broadcast of day 2 can be revisited here and on our Vimeo channel.
Computer programmer, technologist, and artist Iris Qu 曲晓宇 discusses her project Do AIs Dream of Climate Chaos.
From October 15 – 17, 2021, Driving the Human presents 21 concepts proposing new visions for sustainable cohabitation on our planet.
We are thrilled to announce the 21 concepts chosen as a result of a successful Open Call.
Xiaoyu (Iris) Qu (曲晓宇, b. 1993, China) is an artist, technol- ogist, and programmer based in Brooklyn, NY, working at the intersection of software engineering and new media art. With code as her primary medium, her works engage with the speculative, political, and poetic aspects of technology. Currently, she works on prototyping experiments at Google Research. Do AIs Dream of Climate Chaos started from her reflection on the entanglement of technology and nature and her role in speculating change as a tech worker.
(photo: Xinyu Li)
Credits
Unity development / Technical artists
Alex Tianyou Wang, Easton Self
Sound design / 3D modeling
Niles Fromm
Workshop design and co-host
Chao Hui Tu
Symbiotic AI Zine Design
Nicole Schwartz
Acknowledgments
David Hecht and Sam Hart, organizers of the Cybernetics Library in New York and Berlin
