Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving into a vast and complex entity that challenges our understanding of and interaction with the world. Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, are already reshaping human life, but they also have a significant, though less visible, impact on non-human worlds. From the energy required to develop AI models to the water consumption needed to maintain them, AI remains materially elusive and ecologically alienated from the realities of our planet. So, how can AI become an ecologically relevant entity?

Revisiting the work of Bristol-based cyberneticist William Grey Walter and his biologically inspired robots, the tortoises, a (re)imitation of life delves into an ecological becoming of AI, where generalised human knowledge, in the form of an LLM, is placed into the bodies of artificial tortoises. In their new corporeal state, these creatures are bestowed with unearthly sensors and encouraged to adopt a non-human perspective of their surroundings.

By exploring AI’s potential to learn from non-human minds, this work seeks to challenge the anthropocentric bias that dominates current AI’s architecture and development while speculating how it may evolve into a more ecologically attuned entity, fostering deeper and more relational interactions with worlds beyond the human.

Dates: 11–17 September 2024, 12:00–17:30.
Venue: Dareshack, Wine Street, Bristol, BS1 2BD.

Free Entry

Entry requirements: no age restrictions — Read more — Read less