Chihuahua or Muffin? (2019)

Elective - Chihuahua or Muffin?

Tutors

Brigit Lichtenegger
Javier Lloret
Arjen Suijker

Special Guests

Florian Cramer
Gaspard Bos

Description

In 2014, a machine passed the Turing Test for the first time since it was developed by Alan Turing in 1950.
The test was based in the question “Can a computer trick a human into thinking it’s actually a fellow human?”.
Even more recently, self-driving cars started driving completely autonomously without a safety driver.
The recent developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are opening up new possibilities but also presenting new challenges and ethical dilemmas. In this elective, students will be introduced to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning through a series of lectures, presentations, hands-on workshops and discussions. What is the current state of AI, and where is it going? How does a machine learn? And why must self-driving cars be programmed to kill? Invited guest lecturers will include media artist and theorist Florian Cramer, and artist and entrepreneur Gaspard Bos.

Goals

The main goals of this elective for students to:

Demystify and achieve a basic understanding of a series of terms in the domain of this course, including: AI, bots, machine learning, neural networks, singularity and computer vision.
Have an overview of the possibilities that these techniques offer for artistic creation.
Reflect on these current technological developments and their application to other fields connected to scientific and technological innovation.
Develop a critical mindset questioning the impact of these developments in our society.
Speculate about potential utopian and dystopian future scenarios that AI might lead us to.
Get familiar with a broad range of machine learning open source tools and frameworks that have been extensively used in recent years.

Assignment

Prepare a performance that displays a future speculative scenario inspired by the current developments of AI and Machine Learning.

Planning

10 days

Week 1

Monday

Kickoff with Brigit Lichtenegger & Javier Lloret. Workshop Computer Vision + Wekinator with Javier.

Tuesday

AI and Machine Learning - Background history, philosophy, Turing Test and a chatbots with Brigit & Javier
Brigit's Presentation

Wednesday

Theory Session on Neural Networks. Workshop Classification with Arjen Suijker
workshop content

Thursday

Image Recognition & Generation using YOLO, Deepdream & DCGans with Brigit and Javier

Friday

Lecture and discussion with Florian Cramer

Week 2