A few years ago, Artificial Intelligence belonged to the realm of science fiction. Today it is reshaping every aspect of our lives although it’s too soon to say for better or for worse. We anticipate that AI will solve the most daunting problems. It will cure diseases, find answers to the climate crisis, and supercharge our efforts to conquer space. Yet the merest glance at history, let alone the state of the world today, suggests one would have to be supremely optimistic to put faith in these utopian scenarios.
I daresay the odds favour the Terminator hypothesis, in which an all-powerful AI decides human beings are nothing but a blight on the planet and eliminates us as a form of pest control. Don’t be surprised if it starts with the National Party.
Cue ‘Discovery Channel’ voiceover: “But will the dream of AI turn into a nightmare?”
Given that more than 100 million people took up ChatGPT within its first month of release in 2023, Data Dreams: Art and AI, at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art is a timely exhibition, albeit the merest tip-of-the-iceberg. To do justice to the AI revolution and its implications any exhibition would need to be on a grand scale, requiring an impractically lengthy commitment from viewers.