+/- Human review – Is this the future of artificial intelligence? Bring it on

Roundhouse, London
Random International’s installation, Zoological, features a flock of airborne spheres that glide and swoop and dance and swarm above and among us. What a mind-boggling show

In René Magritte’s surrealist painting La Voix des Airs (1931), three inscrutable spheres hover in an empty blue sky above green fields. I’ve always wondered what these enigmatic objects really are. Do they come from outer space? Are they about to open and unleash a robot army? What strange message do they bring from their impersonal dimension?

At last I know, because I have met them. I have even danced with them. In the darkened heights of the Roundhouse in north London, a flying flock of white spheres that uncannily resemble Magritte’s dream objects float intelligently and curiously, checking out the humans below, hovering downward to see us better. They are the most convincing embodiment of artificial intelligence I have ever seen. For these responsive, even sensitive machines truly create a sense of encounter with a digital life form that mirrors, or mocks, human free will.

They are the most convincing embodiment of ​artificial intelligence I have ever seen

This artwork that opens visions of a future in which life evolves beyond biology itself.

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