Do Machines Dream of Magic? is a website and series of intimate
gatherings aimed at exploring the role of traditional forms of magic
during a time of AI magic. It aims to merge ancient beliefs with
futuristic systems in order to explore tensions, opportunities,
anxieties and hopes around the future of technology in a time of climate
change and increased concerns about the state of the world.
The entire website is designed and built with the help from AI - the
visuals are generated by Mid Journey or Stable Diffusion, the text is
generated with the help of ChatGPT. All the work sits at the
intersection of technology, spirituality, and social change, fostering a
deeper understanding of the ways in which individuals navigate the
digital realm and their relationship with artificial intelligence.
The in-person event is a light gathering of people to experience and
deliver the spells. We work with LLMs, Stable Diffusion models and the
prompt templates to craft a ritual that we are enacting for protection
in this new digital age.
We are grateful to the Civic Media Fellowship at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communications and the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) Initiative of USC Center for Generative AI & Society for supporting this project.
Qianqian Ye (they/she) is a Chinese artist, creative technologist and educator based in Los Angeles (Gabrielino-Tongva Land). Trained as an architect, she creates digital, physical, and social spaces exploring issues around gender, immigration, power, and technology. Their most recent collaborative project, The Future of Memory, was a recipient of the Mozilla Creative Media Award. At the Processing Foundation, Qianqian is the Lead of p5.js, an open-source art and education platform that prioritizes access and diversity in learning to code, with over 1.5 million users. She currently teaches creative coding as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at USC Media Arts + Practice and 3D Arts at Parsons School of Design. For 2022-2023, Qianqian is a Civic Media Fellow at USC Annenberg Innovation Lab.
AX Mina (she/they) is a creative consultant, futures thinker and leadership coach. She served as a contributing editor for the book Ai Weiwei: Spatial Matters. AX published Memes to Movements: How the World’s Most Viral Media is Changing Social Protest and Power in January 2019 and is co-author of The Hanmoji Handbook with Jason Li and Jennifer 8. Lee. She has also written for the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Atlantic, Nieman Journalism Lab and New York Magazine, among others. She is currently a Senior Civic Media Fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Journalism and Communications and an affiliate at the Institute for the Future, and she is a certified trauma-informed yoga teacher.
We’ve become interested in the rise of two forms of magical thinking
having an impact on civics: generative AI and age-old magic practices
like astrology, divination and spell casting. This project aims to
engage people in core concepts of AI through the lens of ancient magic,
merging magical traditions to develop an approachable, informed and
coherent sense of the possible role of artificial intelligence in our
lives.
As generative artificial intelligence begins to influence and shape
society, a discourse of what we call “technocratic magical thinking”
makes it difficult to have meaningful conversations about the future of
these tools, their civic role, and how we can work with them
productively—or resist them entirely. In the spirit of treating AI
literacy as a civic good, we try to make transparent the process through
which this project is developed, highlighting the different
throughpoints and interactions between generative AI systems and human
creativity that will come together to bring this project to life.
At the same time, we are examining the re-emergent role of traditional
magic systems, from astrology to tarot, from shamanism to spell casting,
in popular discourse, as we witness a merging with magic and core
principles of justice. We hope that formulating this project around an
area of popular interest will help facilitate engagement, joy and
curiosity. The project is presented as an open-source website and public
gatherings, encouraging participation, collaboration, and community
engagement, with room for people to explore their questions and concerns
about the ongoing evolution of AI.
For the first interation of this project, we commissioned artists Cy X, Edgar Fabián Frías, Helen Shewolfe Tseng, and Jamel Mims/ MC Tingbudong to develop AI personas.
The shader sphere used in this background is adapted from Shader Sketch by clustah.
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