Artificial intelligence has many problems. It conveys a lot of Western biases, and can often be racist and sexist in the way it generates text, sound and images. Much of these biases comes from the datasets used to train neural networks. One way of solving this problem is to use filters that artificially add diversity and eliminate toxic content, and this is what large companies are currently doing. This then raises the question of who makes the decisions about what to filter and how much diversity is enough and, of course, at best this is a bandaid and at worst a smoke screen from the underlying reality of these issues. In the end it’s just another form of censorship and Western bias based on a certain idea of morality. So we get little nudity and lots of violence, but still no room for minority cultures.
The communities
There have also always been cultural communities that are under-represented in society. In recent decades, culture has tended to become standardised and Westernised throughout the world, making these minorities even less visible. Today, the arrival of artificial intelligence is building on this trend and reinforcing it. Through this project, we want to understand how to balance Chimère’s “knowledge” by working with these communities. We also want to shift the discussion to these communities and hear how and whether they want to occupy a greater place in local, regional, national and international societies. Some of these communities are experimental artists, others are LGBTQI+ activists and still others are differently abled people. The list of under-represented groups in our societies is long and varied, and we think it will be enriching for all of us to work together (and separately) on this project. As a society, we still have a long way to go in terms of non-hierarchical coexistence, and if art can raise questions, it can also blaze new trails.
The first communities that we are meeting with are in Lesotho, South Africa and Switzerland:
Lesotho administered by
Art.1.st Produkshens – Morija, partnering with
The Hub – Morija
Magnet Theatre – Cape Town
Bertha House – Free film school – Cape Town
Centre for the Less Good idea – Johannesburg
Les ateliers Art-Médias-Design – Genève