The Seeker @ ZKM Open Codes

We are being watched. The watchers are not human.

With accelerating advances in machine learning and AI image recognition, an entirely new way of seeing is evolving: a machinic visual landscape. Machines are being trained to see, and through their nascent gaze, they are learning to evaluate, judge, and make decisions which will affect us all.

»The Seeker« is an AI that travels the world virtually and describes the things it sees. This ongoing artist project was named for Ptah-Seker, the artist/technologist god of the Ancient Egyptians who created the world by speaking the words to describe it. 

»The Seeker« surveys the world through security camera eyes, recording thousands of snapshots of the things it sees. It then attempts to interpret them using the latest image recognition algorithms.

This act of describing the world can be viewed as an AI’s search for meaning. However, it is also an act of self-revelation, providing us with glimpses into the black box processes driving the evolution of the machinic gaze, and exposing the AI’s own conceptual framework and expectations.

The documentation of the artwork is available online.