"We're pro-AI and we're pro-consent. Those things don't have to be mutually exclusive." The activists and artists talk about the hot button issues facing AI's governance.
The world is deep in the throes of a heightening debate over AI. Just this week, the Vatican published an essay addressing the potential, and risks, of AI in a new high-tech world as well as its intersection with religion and humanity. In politics, figures like Elon Musk are advising citizens that the US government will become increasingly "AI-first," using data about its individuals to make federal decisions. And in the world of culture and the humanities, the alarm has been sounded on AI's ability to both aid in creativity and homogenise the art and music being produced and consumed, raising concerns that much of what's being released is sounding increasingly the same.
There are probably no better experts on this far-ranging topic than Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, two Berlin-based academics and artists who have entrenched themselves in the world of AI ethics, advocacy and art for the past two decades. Now married, they come from DIY punk backgrounds, both having lived in the Bay Area pre-tech bubble while Herndon completed a Ph.D in Computer Music at Stanford. Their work is primarily concerned with how AI is governed as it becomes more ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and what its implications are for ownership of AI-generated artworks.
In this urgent and timely RA Exchange, the duo talk about their shift closer to the art world following their 2024 exhibition at The Whitney Biennial and their most recent show at Serpentine Gallery in London, The Call, which will close at the end of this month. It's one of many forward-thinking projects they've worked on to move away from the fear narrative dominating dialogue around how AI is influencing art and music, instead showcasing how machine learning can be used to push art forward. They also address their view of socialist democratic values with the rise of the far right, raising a young child and doing work that sits squarely between activism and art. Listen to the episode in full. – Chloe Lula
