Blast Theory were chosen as Artists in Residence for the University of Sheffield’s Framing Responsible AI Implementation and Management (FRAIM) project.
The artists attended workshops, conducted interviews and reviewed AI policies from government, legal firms, publishers, academic institutions and tech firms.
This culminated in the creation of a new artwork responding to the challenges of responsible AI, named Constant Washing Machine.
Artists’ Statement
We have been intrigued by the instability of the language used in AI policies. Famously, the definition of AI itself is contested and fragmented. At the outset of the field even the term ‘intelligence’ was controversial. When language is this slippery how do we grasp the profound changes that AI is bringing?
In Responsible AI policies terms such as “transparency” and “alignment” are used frequently, often with little attempt to define them. Given that the current boom in AI is driven by Large Language Models (and their outstanding fluency with language) there is an added irony around these questions of meaning and intent. Are Large Language Models ‘intelligent’ in any sense or just stochastic parrots capable only of aping what they have heard. Are the metaphors of parrots (or apes) helping us to grasp important concepts or just simplifying complex ideas into a palatable form?
Computers themselves have become one of the central metaphors of our time and the use of computer as a metaphor for the human brain is hotly debated. In contrast to the mind/body separation so embedded in these metaphors, we have been thinking about the role of the body in human intelligence. How to represent our subjective and visceral response to the abstract, opaque and, at times, threatening world of Artificial Intelligence? And how to place our fragile, human, subjective selves in the loop?
A key concern of Responsible AI is the role of human control and input. “Human in the loop” is cited as an important requirement both for the development of AI models and for their operations and outcomes. Where do we assert our humanness in a world of code, high level abstraction and crude extrapolations of ‘processing power’?
These open ended questions have led us to think about soap. Soap is intimate. We touch it to our bodies and spread it over the surface of our skin. Soap is social. We share bars of soap with others. It is an everyday product – produced industrially in thousands of tiny variations – that is rich with its own set of metaphors. We wash our hands of something, we greenwash things, we clean house, we appear squeaky clean, we get ourselves in a lather. These metaphors entwine the body and ethics. And they speak to slippery behaviour and slippery meanings.
Our processes of hygiene – our daily routines and rituals – are repetitive and private. They are a place where our habits are formed. We wash ourselves as part of our self care; it is how we look after ourselves. Responsible AI may also be thought of as a process based on culture and habit, rather than policies and protocols. We embed our values in the ways we behave every day and often the most important decisions are discreetly taken.
The work
We invited participants in the FRAIM project – as researchers, curators and industry partners – to select a word or short phrase that they consider vital for Responsible AI and then have their portrait taken. We then created a limited edition of bars of plain white soap, each bar bearing that word or phrase.
Photographer Melanie Pollard took a portrait of each person with their bar of soap. This reflects the subjective and human presences at work in the field of Responsible AI and the embodied knowledge that we bring.
Performance on 10th December 2024 at Blast Theory studio
Eight bars of soap were displayed with a washing bowl and a hand towel. Four participants in the FRAIM project – Denis Newman-Griffis, Susan Oman, Hannah Redler Hawes and Matt Adams – were invited to choose a bar of soap and wash their hands. Over time the words on the bars of soap are erased but the steady practice of hand washing embeds the knowledge about Responsible AI. The hand washers participated in an exchange with each other, sharing a private practice in public.
The most modest of objects – a bar of soap –acts as a reminder that Responsible AI is dependent on daily habits and culture rather than policies or regulations.
FRAIM is a Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) scoping project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under UK Research and Innovation, Arts and Humanities Research Council award number AH/Z505596/1. It is part of the broader UK Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme to bring out the essential role of arts and humanities perspectives in shaping Responsible AI dialogues. The project partners are; The British Library, Eviden, Sheffield City Council and Open Data Institute (ODI). ‘Constant Washing Machine’ is curated by Hannah Redler-Hawes, through the ODI’s Data as Culture programme.
