Your mind is not a computer: on Ian Cheng at MoMA PS1
Computers can’t think; they do not reason on their own. Your mind is not a computer and your computer is not a mind. Engineers of ubiquitous computing platforms are determined to convince us otherwise. For many of them, artificial general intelligence—the point at which computers will exceed the intellectual capacity of humans—is just around the corner. A cadre of techno-philic artists follow closely on their heels. But their claims have been greatly oversold. Few of these brave Futurists are able to ponder the deeper problem involved. Our minds crave narrative. Stories are how we make sense of an otherwise blank reality. If we are to live alongside artificial intelligence (AI), how might that bear on the narratives we use to make meaning of our world?
The American artist Ian Cheng knows computers can’t think. For several years, he has drawn on his study of cognitive science and his work with the special effects company Industrial Light and Magic to make work about human immersion in technology. His trilogy Emissaries (2017)—an open-ended, animated simulation with no pre-determined ending—is about the evolution of cognition. (The work is on show now at MoMA PS1 in New York.)
In each stage, animated characters build their own fictitious world with the aid of a network of AI algorithms. Simply put, it is a video game playing itself. The on-screen actions of the characters may seem unpredictable, but they are not random. They grow from highly-patterned learned outputs of the same tools that categorise images, translate texts or recommend Amazon products. The result is an epic creation myth in which an artificial “mind” evolves in an attempt to arrive at sentience.
In part one, Emissary In The Squat of the Gods, we see an ancient volcano nurturing a small community on the cusp of civilization. The full story is detailed in wall texts; onscreen the simulation is chaos: explosions in the distance, strange voices blurting out commands. A Shaman and snake-boy gather around a totem known as the Holy Fumerole. Other characters shift about. A young girl is hit in the head by volcanic debris, which shakes her from the spell of the voices that bind the community. With the help of an owl, she breaks away.
The next episode, Emissary Forks at Perfection (presented in another gallery), picks up the simulation "many lifetimes later." The setting is a crater lake formed by the volcanic eruption in the first episode. Here, AI surveys the last vestiges of human life amidst a landscape populated by Shiba Inu dogs.
In the last section, The Emissary Sunsets the Self, we find that the crater lake has given way to a “sentient” atoll. This is the final attempt of the AI to learn by “droning,” whereby it experiences the sensations and habits of a biological organism. When I was there on just one day of an endless simulation, it looked something like a Middle Eastern desert. An AI Puddle emissary (basically a worm) was spinning incessantly into the side of a dune.
But the narrative details of any one episode are not essential because the fantastic plot of the simulation is impossible to follow. Its sophistication exceeds the limits of human perception. It is dizzying, logically and aesthetically. Within the first few minutes, anyone will come to terms with the fundamental contradiction at play: that the character’s stated goals are purposefully interrupted by the machine’s learning. Every moment of the work is a reminder of the fundamental incompatibility of human cognition with a machine’s attempt to artificially replicate it. Emissaries, in short, is a large-scale conflict between the narrative character elements and the computer that diverts it. There is never any resolution. In fact, as you read this, the plot is still unfolding somewhere on the internet.
The American artist Ian Cheng knows computers can’t think. For several years, he has drawn on his study of cognitive science and his work with the special effects company Industrial Light and Magic to make work about human immersion in technology. His trilogy Emissaries (2017)—an open-ended, animated simulation with no pre-determined ending—is about the evolution of cognition. (The work is on show now at MoMA PS1 in New York.)
In each stage, animated characters build their own fictitious world with the aid of a network of AI algorithms. Simply put, it is a video game playing itself. The on-screen actions of the characters may seem unpredictable, but they are not random. They grow from highly-patterned learned outputs of the same tools that categorise images, translate texts or recommend Amazon products. The result is an epic creation myth in which an artificial “mind” evolves in an attempt to arrive at sentience.
In part one, Emissary In The Squat of the Gods, we see an ancient volcano nurturing a small community on the cusp of civilization. The full story is detailed in wall texts; onscreen the simulation is chaos: explosions in the distance, strange voices blurting out commands. A Shaman and snake-boy gather around a totem known as the Holy Fumerole. Other characters shift about. A young girl is hit in the head by volcanic debris, which shakes her from the spell of the voices that bind the community. With the help of an owl, she breaks away.
The next episode, Emissary Forks at Perfection (presented in another gallery), picks up the simulation "many lifetimes later." The setting is a crater lake formed by the volcanic eruption in the first episode. Here, AI surveys the last vestiges of human life amidst a landscape populated by Shiba Inu dogs.
In the last section, The Emissary Sunsets the Self, we find that the crater lake has given way to a “sentient” atoll. This is the final attempt of the AI to learn by “droning,” whereby it experiences the sensations and habits of a biological organism. When I was there on just one day of an endless simulation, it looked something like a Middle Eastern desert. An AI Puddle emissary (basically a worm) was spinning incessantly into the side of a dune.
But the narrative details of any one episode are not essential because the fantastic plot of the simulation is impossible to follow. Its sophistication exceeds the limits of human perception. It is dizzying, logically and aesthetically. Within the first few minutes, anyone will come to terms with the fundamental contradiction at play: that the character’s stated goals are purposefully interrupted by the machine’s learning. Every moment of the work is a reminder of the fundamental incompatibility of human cognition with a machine’s attempt to artificially replicate it. Emissaries, in short, is a large-scale conflict between the narrative character elements and the computer that diverts it. There is never any resolution. In fact, as you read this, the plot is still unfolding somewhere on the internet.
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