AI, Art, & Crime
Art can tell impactful stories of how AI supercharges government power
In early February, I was on a fascinating panel put on by Helen Maria Nugent at CCA about AI and Art: Contemplating an Algorithmic Future, as part of CCA’s After Intelligence event. Nora N. Khan and Dr. Vanessa Chang were also on the panel.
I posited that society cannot withstand a government that catches a lot of criminals. We all do something wrong. Driving infractions, cheating on your taxes, breaking into your spouse or kids’ Internet accounts, smoking marijuana, shoplifting. I asked the audience to look to their right, look to their left. According to the FBI stats, either they or their neighbors has a criminal record. (Though of course convictions aren’t evenly spread in our racist and classist society. But you get the point.) And records of wrongdoing don’t just send people to jail. They are also used to deny access to public benefits like housing, jobs, and professional licenses. So how could we live with an algorithm to analyze people’s past behavior—their bank records, social media, and even SAT scores—to predict if they would become a threat in the future?
My presentation, on AI and surveillance, is available here.
One thing I really liked about the event overall was that it avoided the trap so many people dive into when talking about AI. The detractors say it is ruining the world or at the very least killing art, and the proponents can see no wrong. The CCA event didn’t indulge. AI is here, and artists have to think about how it will change society, and how they will create now that such a tool is widely available.
