NOT THE ONLY ONE

Conversational AI Installation

We worked with artist Stephanie Dinkins to create the next iterations of her work “Not the Only One”, an interactive AI which the audience can communicate with by speaking and listening. It is an experiment in making a multigenerational memoir of a black American family told from the perspective of a custom deep learning artificial intelligence.

It uses artificial intelligence in the sculpture, feeding it information about the life of a Black American family over several generations. The artificial intelligence was designed, trained and adapted to the perspectives of Black people, who are underrepresented in the technology sector. Over time, discussions with the audience influence its story-telling skills by increasing and improving the database available for interaction. The entity is not always communicative and conversations do not always proceed as you would expect.

The sculptural installation featured at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Finland as part of the exhibition In Search of the Present and is now on show in Kansas at the Spencer Museum of Art.

For the latest iteration of the work, NTOO evolves from a sculpture and into an animating 3D bust. This version of the work premiered at the Ford Foundation Gallery as part of the exhibition What Models Make Worlds: Critical Imaginaries of AI and is on show through till December 2023.

You can learn more about the lineage of the work on Stephanie Dinkins’ website.