Schedule
Presentations
Full-Spectrum Science: Lasers
With Ron Hipschman
7:00 and 8:30 p.m. | Osher Gallery 1, Kanbar Forum
In 1960, the laser was known as “a solution looking for a problem.” Now we can hardly imagine life without them. Learn what’s special about laser light, how it’s made, and how it’s used in everything from DVD players to eye surgery to fusion energy research. Join Exploratorium scientist Ron Hipschman for colorful explorations of the physical world at Full-Spectrum Science.
Emotional AI: What Happens When Machines Can Feel?
With Arielle Pardes
7:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3, Wattis Webcast Studio
What does it mean for software to feel? Can a human have a meaningful, emotional relationship with a machine? Drawing from her work as a reporter with Wired, Arielle Pardes will share some provocative projects emerging from the field of emotional AI. Learn about a social robot designed specifically to understand feelings and how emotional AI could manifest in some industries that are essential to our everyday lives. Through case studies, Pardes will reflect on the future potential of these technologies and the ways that humans and computers may not be so different from us.
AIs Versus Four-Year-Olds
With Alison Gopnik
8:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3, Wattis Webcast Studio
While recent years have seen dramatic progress in machine learning through data sets, this work is still is limited to relatively simple points of understanding—by giving computers millions of examples of games, images, and previous judgments and providing feedback, scientists can teach them to reach correct answers and predictions. In contrast, humans (and human children, in particular) generate new and unexpected, yet plausible, hypotheses from similar information. Dr. Alison Gopnik argues that our distinctively long, protected human childhood allows an early period of broad hypothesis, search, exploration, and creativity before the demands of adulthood. Join her and learn about this model, which is intrinsically human yet may have deep implications for artificial intelligence.
Ongoing
The Kitty AI: Artificial Intelligence for Governance
With Pinar Yoldas
6:00–10:00 p.m. | Throughout the museum
It’s the year 2039. An artificial intelligence with the affective capacities of a kitten becomes the first non-human governor. She leads a politician-free zone with a network of artificial intelligences. She lives in mobile devices of the citizens and can love up to three million people. Tonight, After Dark is governed by the Kitty AI. While she hasn’t yet reached your mobile phones, she is nestled into various locations to campaign for her radical future vision.
ERNEST
With Sean Mullholland
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3
ERNEST is from an era prior to ubiquitous data collection. He needs you to help train the Happiness Model™—using computer vision to detect faces, he’s learning to understand emotions and how various pieces of content affect human emotional expressions. However, while ERNEST’s creators are training a Happiness Model™, the same technology could ultimately be applied in other ways. Join the conversation around the ethics of how data is gathered and used to train machines, the ways in which bias can creep into the process, and the gap between intent and real-world applications of these models.
Face2Face v.1.2
With Anastasia Victor
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3
Glimpse a speculative future in which interpersonal interactions are mediated by realtime facial detection and analysis in Face2Face v1.2. Watch as your face is analyzed in real time using AI driven technology, which speculates on your age, gender, and emotional state—is it correct? Face2Face v.1.2 uses technology that includes Amazon Rekognition, a controversial AI-based tool that has been used by law enforcement despite a high margin of error. This piece is the second in Anastasia Victor’s series of works Training Sets, which takes a critical position on the use of facial detection and analysis.
H[AI]KU (2019)
With Purin Phanichphant
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3
Instead of competing with AI, what if we, as humans, collaborate with it? What if the task at hand is a creative one, like writing a poem? What would the world look like if we stopped thinking of machine intelligence as “artificial?” H[AI]KU is a glimpse into a future where humans and machines collaborate on solving complex problems with creativity. This work is a collaboration between Purin Phanichphant and Kartikye Mittal.
Lost in Google Translation (2017)
With Purin Phanichphant
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3
Neither humans nor machines are perfect. While the Google Translate algorithm can translate phrases across a wide range of languages instantaneously—something that very few humans are capable of—its accuracy might never catch up with the subtleties of human languages that it works with. These discrepancies become evident when a phrase is first translated (in this case, into Thai), and then re-translated back into English. Experience these shortcomings in both human and machine capabilities and explore the ways in which they point to a future where both parties coexist and collaborate. This work is a collaboration between Purin Phanichphant and Kevin Ho.
Type Space (2017)
With Purin Phanichphant
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3
Font selection can be a tricky task — there are so many to choose from, each with its own nuances and characteristics. Type Space is an installation that explores what’s possible when machine learning and design intersect. By using a neural network to look at over 200 fonts, artist Purin Phanichphant created a space where the visual relationships between fonts can be explored. Fonts are grouped without any human intervention, giving insight into how neural networks “see.” This work is a collaboration between Purin Phanichphant and Kevin Ho.
An Eye Unruled
With Gene Kogan, Simone C. Niquille, Maria Guta, Dominique Koch, and Pinar Yoldas
6:00–9:00 p.m. | swissnex Gallery, Pier 17
The swissnex Gallery is located at the rear of Pier 17; cross the fog bridge located outside in Gallery 5, then head toward the water. An Eye Unruled has limited capacity and is first-come, first-served.
Traverse the Exploratorium’s fog bridge to the neighboring swissnex Gallery and experience An Eye Unruled with a personal tour. This exhibition presents five artistic positions exploring how human and nonhuman agents merge to create alternative imaginary worlds and new ways of seeing. From neural networks that hallucinate creatures or generate pixel-perfect portraits of nonexisting people, to Instagram selfies of self-proclaimed CGI-robots, An Eye Unruled explores the possible universes envisioned by the post-human eye. Exhibition artists Gene Kogan, Simone C. Niquille, Maria Guta, Dominique Koch, and Pinar Yoldas offer insight into automatic cognitive methods and show different ways to include processes of machine learning in artistic practice. An Eye Unruled is presented by Fotomuseum Winterthur and swissnex San Francisco through September 29, 2019.
