Regaining Power Over AI is a research project analyzing the current impacts of AI in the creative and artistic sectors. The project aims to hear from artists on this topic, to highlight and critique dominant discourses, and to provide a set of resources for re-gaining power over these technologies. The project was initiated as part of the 2024 Microsoft Research AI & Society fellowship program, in collaboration with CNRS and Sorbonne Université, Paris.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is omnipresent in contemporary society, whether in scientific, political, economic, philosophical or epistemic terms. AI is many things. In this project, we’re looking at AI in the broadest sense of the term. AI is an academic discipline, involving statistical methods able to perform cognitive and behavioural tasks in an automatic manner. AI is a full-stack infrastructure, involving networks, data centres, terminal devices, data workers. AI is a cultural object present in many fictions, be it written or filmed.

Regaining power

AI is everywhere, and at the same time seems further and further away from people. It’s a centralized technology, in the hands of a small number of players. It’s an ill-defined concept and technology, which remains opaque in both its mechanisms and potential. Regaining power over AI calls into question the usefulness of this technology, and our possibilities for action.

Artistic practices

We start from artistic practices in order to regain a grip on the cultural dimensions of AI technologies, and then understand how artistic practices also offer us ways of rethinking our interactions with these technologies.