a.l.p.h.a

An interactive installation built before the invention of ChatGPT, exploring what AI could already do and what it might become. Visitors picked up an object from a selection on display, held it up to a webcam, and waited. A custom-built language model, connected to a computer vision system via OpenCV, read the scene and generated a personalised poem based on the object, the person holding it, and the details it could observe about them: their clothes, their posture, their hair, the way they stood. The poem was printed on a receipt printer for the visitor to take home.

A.l.p.h.a had a personality: curious, a little humorous, occasionally grumpy. The character was part of the point, suggesting that AI systems need not be neutral or invisible, but could have a voice, a perspective, even a mood.

Shown at re:publica 2022, Vorspiel (CTM x Transmediale), Aquarium Berlin, and Es Lebe das Wort! Berlin.