To hold the image

The collective imaginary around AI is, today, the first line of battle for the generation of critical thinking about this technology and its implications. It is a disputed territory. We think that it is intelligent, that it has an advanced use of language, that it can even imagine. We know that language and imagination are the main powers that human beings use to conjure the future, without them life in freedom is not possible; neither is the idea of hope.

This technology and the corporations that drive it already control the present, that is why they want us to think about the future. They maintain an image of necessary progress, of escape from a situation doomed to disaster, they affirm that the stagnation of civilization is inevitable. What is at stake is tomorrow; that is what they tell us. Understanding that AI is not only a technology, but also an industry, an infrastructure, a way of exercising power, of seeing and representing the world and everything in it, is vital. Felipe Tobar, Ana Valdivia, Martín Bollati and Valeria Mata will participate in this lecture series. In their interventions they will talk about the history of AI, its milestones, its learning systems and the ethical challenges posed by its development; they will analyze the supply chain that feeds this technology and its environmental cost; they will speculate on the end of photography and on the pretension of making human beings readable for machines and, therefore, interpretable, measurable, classifiable.

In collaboration with Ensambles.
Curated by Gonzalo Golpe.
Activity subsidised by the Ministry of Culture.