Secret Life of AI

This workshop challenges common, technology-centred narratives about artificial intelligence (AI) by shifting the focus from science fiction ideas and technical definitions to the social, economic, environmental and material conditions that shape AI systems. Instead of viewing AI as an autonomous or purely digital phenomenon, participants examine AI as a socio-technical construct. A complex system that encompasses human labour, global infrastructures, natural resources, corporate interests and cultural dynamics. Using guided impulses on philosophy, design and the use of AI technologies, as well as four thematic tasks, participants critically examine current trends, discourses and real-world impacts of AI. They document their findings together in a magazine.

Myths and de-mystification of AI

"Pop culture narratives and Western science fiction films such as “Terminator”, “Her” and “Westworld” have a major influence on how we think about AI technologies. However, these narratives do not necessarily help us to understand the impact of AI on our lives, our planet, our culture and our rights in a realistic way.“

The authors of the method

The workshop’s aim is to encourage participants to view AI as a complex system – a socio-technical assemblage – by focusing on those aspects that define AI beyond pure code: human labour, the consumption of natural resources and environmental impacts, as well as other social, cultural and material components that are often overlooked in the prevailing narratives about AI.

Through sets of tasks in four areas, participants are encouraged to creatively decode and recode contemporary technological trends, events, discourses, and ideas surrounding AI technologies in order to generate critical insights about their own involvement in comprehensive AI systems.

Goals

Demystify artificial intelligence by questioning technology-centred approaches and bringing social, economic and ecological aspects of technology to the fore.
Learning concrete ideas on the philosophy, conception, design and application of AI technologies
Improving information search and evaluation skills
Competences to transform concepts into texts and into a product by editorial work

Steps

1. Low-threshold Icebreaker to Get Started

Take an item out of your pocket or backpack.
Select 1-3 apps on your mobile phone that you have used recently (e.g. Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok). Search for your object by entering the term (e.g. ‘bottle’, ‘mobile phone’) in the search box.
Note down your results: Is it a product, a viral video, a blog post or a news article that is displayed first?
Share your results with the others. How is the object presented? What is it supposed to evoke or trigger in consumers/viewers? What does the result tell you about how the app is programmed? What does it show you?

2. Introduction

The trainers introduce the social dimension of AI applications using various examples.

Inspirational Sources

The original method in German offers various ideas on this topic.
The handbook More than Go with the Flow on the subject of digitalisation is an useful introduction.
The articles on digitalisation in society in the Digitalisation chapter cover a broad spectrum.

3. Development phase of a topic complex on AI

The following tasks are to be completed in small groups. Choose a task focus and work on it in your group.

People & work: Visualise the human labour behind the app's user interface

Track down the people behind the technology

When you open an app, it appears to be a self-contained AI programme that executes autonomous code and fills the screen with perfectly placed buttons, icons and interactive features. But every piece of software we interact with is also a manifestation of human labour. And that doesn't just mean the hours that developers put into programming. For example, much of the sorting of our social media feeds depends on human moderators who sit in front of screens for hours, reviewing and filtering content that has been flagged as offensive or hurtful.

Instructions

Browse the user interface of your mobile phone and find the hidden people who work behind this interface.

Select a frequently used app on your mobile phone.
Use online research to find out what kind of human labour goes into making the app work. What activities and jobs are needed to evaluate, moderate, advertise, etc. this app in accordance with its guidelines?
Who are these people? What do they do? What do you think they had for lunch? Did they have a good day at work? Discuss and speculate in the group.
Find a creative way to represent the human labour behind the app's user interface on an A4 page in landscape format.

Energy & Ecology: Create an environmentally friendly server farm

Server farms produce emissions, just like farms. Transform a server farm into an environmentally friendly farm.

The digestive process of cows produces immense amounts of methane emissions, which contribute to global warming. Just like these invisible digestive processes, every Google search, every Instagram filter or every TikTok recommendation has a carbon footprint. Most AI algorithms rely on resource-intensive calculations that take place on large server farms somewhere in the world. These are not farms full of cows, but places full of flashing black boxes that receive, process and send data around the world every millisecond of the day.

Instructions

Find a real server farm somewhere in the world and turn it into an environmentally friendly farm.

Search for a real server farm belonging to Google, Facebook or Amazon. You can search for ‘Amazon/Facebook/Google server location’ in a search engine or use one of the following sources: org/amazon-atlas/map, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_data_centers, baxtel.com/data-centers/facebook
What ecosystem or environment is the server located in? (Hint: What types of birds, insects, and plants are found in this area?)
What impact could climate change, partly caused by server farms, have on this environment? * Discuss this in your group.
On an A4 page, ‚‘‘sketch a speculative vision of an environmentally friendly version of the server farm’‘‘. To do this, design a prototype, describe a visionary dream, write a manifesto or imagine a science fiction scenario.

Values: Design a honest advertisement

If app advertising were honest... Come up with an honest advertisement for an app.

Behind every product advertisement and company slogan lie certain intentions, values and ideological views that define a company. Even AI software itself is never neutral: it is shaped by the values and beliefs of its creators. Facebook's content filters, for example, regularly block accounts of people who post classical art depicting female nudity. If an app like Facebook were to run honest advertising, what would its slogans be?

Instructions

Choose one of the most frequently used apps on your mobile phone.
What kind of content is advertised in it, what kind of content is blocked?
The teacher could provide one of the following or similar sources and examples:
- Facebook Pitched New Tool Allowing Employers to Suppress Words Like “Unionize” in Workplace Chat Product (The Intercept)
- Invisible Censorship (The Intercept)
- Apple made Siri deflect questions on feminism, leaked papers reveal (The Guardian)
What values does the app implicitly promote, and how does this differ from the way the app is marketed to the public? Discuss in groups.
Design an honest advertisement for an app on an A4 page that shows some of your findings.

Capital: Visualise the digital money flow

Follow the money.

The AI market is rooted in a capitalist economy. Free software such as Google Maps can often be monetised by collecting data that serves as the basis for marketing software and systems. So when we use advanced technologies for free, we often help other companies sell us products and services in even more compelling ways. Most free apps have two markets: the users and the companies that pay for access to user data. Most free technologies are financed by such a multi-sided market.

Instructions

Become a detective. Select a free app on your mobile phone and ‘follow the money’ to find out how it generates its profits.
Select a free app on your mobile phone.
Which company created this app? Can you find out how much revenue the company generates annually?
How do companies make money if the app is free? And why is the app free in the first place? Discuss this in your group.
On an A4 page in landscape format, creatively ‚illustrate the path of money from your free app to the company's profits. (Tip: It could be in the form of a treasure map, an investigative report or an infographic, for example.)

3. Creating a Zine

Now the A4 pages designed by the small groups are compiled into a zine and all participants receive a copy

Creating a Zine

Consult the original method (in German, which describes this process in great detail) Das geheime Leben einer KI
Rona Akbari (2018): How to make a zine. The Creative Independent
Ariel Bissett Video: How To: Zines

Reference

Das geheime Leben einer KI

This description is an abridged version of the method published in German "Das geheime Leben einer KI", developed by Raziye Buse Çetin & Adriaan Odendaal & Serkan Ünsal & Karla Zavala.