Predrag K. Nikolic, Mohd Razali Md Tomari, Marko Jovanovic: Botorikko, Machine Created State

Summary

Botorikko is conceptualized as a philosophical discussion between Machiavelli and Sun Tzu artificial intelligent philosophers clones. We are liberating artificial intelligence creative patterns toward autonomous robot’s aesthetical expression. The narrative generated by intelligent agents is “metaphysics of the machines” with unknown meta context, which incontinently augments Human-AI hybrid society.

Abstract

The recent development in the machine learning field encounters interesting robots’ creative responses and becoming a challenging artistic medium. They are two possible directions in the future development of robots’ creativity, replicating the human mental processes, or liberating machine creativity itself. At the SIGGRAPH Asia, we would like to present the artwork Botorikko, Machine Created State conceptualized with the intention to point on Post-Algorithmic Society where we are going to lose control over technology by been obsessed with the idea of using it to serves humanity. In our aesthetical approach, we incline to the 21st-century avant-garde conceptual tradition. We intend to draw parallels between Dadaism and machine-made content and encompass technological singularity and Dadaism into one, Singularity Dadaism, as a humanless paradigm of uncontrollable creative practice closely related to AI aesthetic and machine abstraction phenomena.

Creativity and the act of creating art are some of the greatest challenges the new generation of artificial intelligence models are exposed. Nevertheless, by creating AI agents to achieve and exceed the performances of humans, we need to accept the evolution of their creativity too. Hence, there are two possible directions toward the future development of robots’ creativity, either to replicate the mental processes characteristic for humans or liberate machine creativity and leave them to evolve their own creative practices.

In the artistic origination of the artwork Botorikko, Machine Created State, the appearance and generated dialogues between Machiavelli and Sun Tzu artificial intelligence clones resembles Aristotle’s Mimesis as human’s natural love of imitation and the pleasure in recognizing likenesses and Dadaistic ideas linked to strong social criticism against anti- progressive thinking. We are trying to shift AI as a creative medium beyond traditional artistic approaches and interpretations, and possibly to accept it as co-creative rather than only assistive in the age of AI and Post-Algorithmic Society.

The artworks Botorikko, Machine Created State does not have any pretensions to be classified as artwork but rather “anti-art” as it tends to challenge artificial intelligence creativity, contemporary aesthetic, cultural and social changes as a result of mutual interaction between people and technology. In our artistic approach, we are liberating and explore artificial intelligence creative patterns and expression by using a combination of neural networks, robot – robot interactions, and sentiment analysis. By making artificial intelligence agents autonomous, we are shifting AI as a creative medium beyond traditional artistic approaches and interpretations. The medium as such is not anymore in complete control of an artist. It is divided between humans and robots and their mutual contribution to final creation, like in a technological singularity vision of the future society. The narrative generated by machines in the artworks is something or nothing as the context is unknown. Furthermore, if the grammar is the “metaphysics of the people” (Nietzsche) than with the discussions generated by the AI clones in the Botorikko installation are “metaphysics of the machines.” Machines are liberating language by deconstructing semantics and human logic. The created sentences and words are a result of calculations and algorithms as well as a still unknown level of achieved abstraction by machines and can be addressed to genuine AI aesthetic and be compared in certain instances with the Dadaistic or absurd poetry creative practice.

In our artwork, we are trying to point on the future of Post-Algorithmic Society (SIGGRAPH Asia Gallery Call) where we are going to lose control over technology by been obsessed with the idea of using it to serves humanity. The society where some of the fundamental questions related to ethics, morals, culture, empathy, and human abstraction will be given to machines for free interpretation, unpredictable feedbacks, and meta meanings.

Botorikko, Machine Created State interactive installation is conceptualized as a philosophical discussion between Machiavelli and Sun Tzu AI philosophers clones. The artwork is made of two bicycle construction modified to carry two computer monitors and two pseudo-robot manikin figures. The visitors can listen over the speakers and see on the computer monitors real-time dialogue between the machines. The artificial intelligence clones are challenged to interpret philosophical standpoints from Machiavelli’s “The Prince” and Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, related to politics, diplomacy, strategy, and wars. The robots are using algorithms and given the freedom to create authentic content we consider as the foundation for the first Machine Created State. Furthermore, we are involving sentiment as a new element involved in AI creative practice. Movement of the monitors follows the sentiments in the content created by the clones and mimics six basic emotions; anger, happy, sad, fear, surprise, disgust. Accordingly, the movement becomes an expressive tool in the hands of intelligent agents and is an essential part of the artwork. Visitors can interact with the installation by pedaling bicycles which will automatically start absurd “mechanical” sword fight between Machiavelli and Sun Tzu manikin figures look robots with mounted computer monitors heads, placed at the front part of the bicycles. This link between visitors and robots develops interaction on the Human-Robot-Robot level which tends to become a genuine social phenomenon of our and future time. We are influenced by Dadaistic and theatre of absurd artistic practice, when using the metaphor of sword fighting, pedaling based interaction and old-machines that look like bicycle should lead visitors to deeper immersion into artwork context and exceed meanings beyond obvious. Artificial Intelligence Clones Philosophers are created by using four independent recurrent neural networks (RNN), designed to generate a sequence of words based on the input sequence. The training was done with the selected publications and books of Nietzsche, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Sun Tzu. The conversation was initiated by picking a random quote from a book of a few complete sentences, and from that point output of one network was used as input to the other to maintain a conversation. Every 30 minutes, a context switch is made by picking another quote from a book to alter the course of conversation. In the artwork Botorikko, Machine Created State, we add movement as a performative element. The generated movements are a result of machine sentiment analysis applied to its own text, and as such, part of an act of AI creation.

Unlike the use of AI as a medium to support or imitate human creativity and behavioural patterns, we intend to liberate and explore its creative patterns through the robot – robot interactions. Our focus on computational aesthetic rather than the quality of the content itself judged upon rational criteria and characteristics. Through the dialogue between our AI Philosopher Clones such as Machiavelli and Sun Tzu in the installation “Botorikko, Machine Created State”, we combined Aristotle’s Mimesis as human’s natural love of imitation and the pleasure in recognizing likenesses and Dadaistic ideas linked to strong social criticism against anti-progressive thinking, Finally, if the grammar is the “metaphysics of the people,” (Nietzsche} then discussions in the “Botorikko, Machine Created State” are “metaphysics of the machines.” The content generated by machines in the artworks is something or nothing as the context is unknown. As such, it must be examined more closely from different aesthetical and creative perspectives to exceed the meanings beyond the obvious.

Inspiration Behind the Project

By making artificial intelligence agents autonomous, we are shifting AI as a creative medium beyond traditional artistic approaches and interpretations. The medium as such is not any more in complete control of an artist. It is divided between humans and robots and their mutual contribution to final creation. Hence, we are in need of extending our aesthetical and conceptual judgments from solely human to human and robot creativity analysis. We are inspired by twentieth-century avant-garde creative practices, Technological Singularity and Dadaism which we follow in our conceptual approach through novel artistic notion we named Singularity Dadaism.