A series of workshops, conversations and presentations will culminate at the Video Pool Media Arts Centre in the Exchange District later today. The presentation, called Telling the Story of the End of the World, explores how artificial intelligence and art intersect and how artists can ethically use it as they speak to different large-scale issues in the world today, from climate change to rising authoritarianism.
These presentations are the brainchild of UKAI Projects, a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to educating artists about AI and how it can be used to address a seemingly-increasingly volatile world. The tensions between art and AI has been well-documented, with the potential for artists losing out on opportunities to ever-evolving technologies, and it’s something that UKAI Projects’ research director Jerrold McGrath acknowledges very openly.
“The challenge with AI is it's so big, it's so complex,” says McGrath. “It's so scary that imagining rituals and response feels like it's somebody else's work and we believe that it's actually each and every one of us [that] has to play a role.”
“Artists are always the ones that sort of give us signals about what that could look like, and so we really want artists involved in this conversation.”
While this series of workshops at Video Pool is just one of several workshops taking place in cities across Canada. McGrath also observes that AI can have a distinct role to play in Winnipeg’s artistic landscape. “Winnipeg has a real pride in its own ability to be resilient to what's going on around it, and AI is perceived often as a threat. But we also believe that AI can support that resilience as long as it's being delivered in an ethical way and it's being done in service to other people.”
Several Winnipeg artists across a wide spread of disciplines and mediums have been attending UKAI Projects’ workshops, including Erika Jean Lincoln, who works in new media and disability arts. A self-described neurodivergent artist, Lincoln uses AI in a variety of ways, including as an assistive device to help visualize ideas and working with voice to text elements. While these have been useful additions to her practice, Lincoln still sympathizes with those who remain skeptical about AI in the arts.
“It’s good to be a little cautious, I think,” Lincoln says, citing that AI still has biases in programming that need to be addressed. “But on the other hand, it’s a good way to map things out and start and it kind of gets you going. But if you rely on it on its own, I think it can be linked to problems.”
These problems are something that McGrath hears a lot about, especially from younger artists just getting started in their creative lives who are concerned that their work and its monetary value is being stolen by massive AI learning operations in private companies. McGrath admits that there isn’t much that can be done about this except for urging action at the political and social levels of the discourse around AI, but he still encourages artists by reminding them of the one thing AI can never present in art: meaning.
“Humans still have to commit themselves to creating stories to explain what's going on,” explains McGrath.
Telling the Story of the End of the World takes place on November 22 at the Video Pool Media Arts Centre in the Exchange District. The events begin at 3 p.m., with lectures, presentations and conversations planned until 9 p.m. For more information, you can visit UKAI Projects’ website.