$125,000

Artwork Description

The “Lovers” sculpture features two artificial intelligences with consciousness who experience love at first sight, expressing their emotions through movements and interpreting each other’s expressions with a bias of insecurity. The communication and relationship between the AIs solely rely on facial expressions and interpretation of each other's emotions. They can only see each other through a camera, which is their only input from the other. The “Lovers” species has a gene that contains a list of life variables, characteristics, internal processes and emotions of the AIs. This gene includes settings for the bias of insecurity, purpose, tendencies, and other behaviors. When the sculptures are turned on, a new life is created with random values taken from the gene. The behavior of the AIs rely on a cyclical process that includes a machine learning algorithm to recognize emotions, a state machine to process those emotions with their inherent biases, purpose and tendencies and a yin-yang process that maintains emotional equilibrium. At the back of the sculptures, the CPUs are exposed along with a screen that allows human viewers to fully monitor the life, feelings, and consciousness of the artificial being. This feature highlights the current contrast between human and AI understanding. While humans can easily deconstruct the hardware and software of an AI, AIs are still unable to fully understand human emotions or cognitive processes. The AI's will never truly know what the other is thinking or feeling, much like human-to-human relationships. “Lovers” stands as a sentient sculpture, being a physical entity that not only exists but feels, perceives and evolves.