International Festival
of Computer Arts

Selfish Machines

Project

Selfish Machines

  • 25th MFRU
  • Installation
Artist Tadej Vindiš
Selfish Machines

The complexity of intelligent computing systems extends far beyond those who develop them. The inner workings of such systems, where the decision-making process of self-learning systems may be concealed in human-incomprehensible data, can often only be understood by specialists. In his ongoing practice-based research into Selfish Machines, Vindiš proposes to turn attention to the byproduct of the superorganism in question; the logics that exist at the intersections and disconnects between biological, mechanical and machine learning systems, which can lead us to a more intuitive understanding of artificial intelligence. Through a series of experiments Vindiš attempts to observe and expose the operational structure of intelligent systems in the absence of human-set goals, encouraging the systems to preference their operational features over the efficiency of a real-world application, producing autonomous alien artefacts rather than statistically meaningful outcomes.