Neither Artificial nor Intelligent

Conversing with an AI chatbot that we imagine to be an intelligent, neutral, and “clean” conversation partner has long since become part of our everyday reality – even though we know all too well that AI is inextricably linked to the extractivist practices and turbo-capitalist business models of Big Tech.  

In his animated film Neither Artificial nor Intelligent, Alexander Glandien turns AI against itself to raise a critical awareness of the hidden, exploitative realities of artificial intelligence, while looking beyond its immaterial surface. To do this, he has created a critical “whistleblower AI” instead of a compliant chatbot. “As an insider of the industry, I have seen first-hand how companies exploit workers, exploit data, and extract resources for their own gain”. Right from the start, the AI summarizes the dark side of a technology that swallows up vast quantities of raw materials, electricity, water, human labor, and creativity.  

Through striking imagery, partly based on facial recognition and surveillance techniques, and partly on the monotonous labor processes of “clickworkers,” Glandien brings to light the massive material and social damage caused by AI. He repeatedly employs surreal, comic-book-style metaphors to depict the monstrous consumption and extraction of data, content, and images. From data-devouring dinosaurs and the unlawful hoovering up of content  to the devastating ecological consequences of lithium mining, the film focuses on the scorched earth left in the wake of this supposedly artificial, supposedly intelligent technology.  

“I am merely a tool, and the responsibility for change lies with humans,” concludes the A.I. whistleblower. This amounts to a call not to underestimate our own role, to demonstrate responsibility, and in the face of rapid technological development, to regain the power to act. (Christa Benzer)

Translation: John Wojtowicz