Ai Weiwei Has 81 Questions for Artificial Intelligence

Ai Weiwei b. 1957, China Follow +

Ai Weiwei will put questions to AI in a new art project commissioned by CIRCA titled Ai vs AI.

From 11 January until 31 March—a period of 81 days, the same time Ai spent in a Chinese prison—the artist will appear on public screens in London, Seoul, Milan, Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Abidjan, and Berlin.

At 8.24pm local time each day he will ask a different question addressed to artificial intelligence.

These include: ‘Can you compile a comprehensive list of all prisoners of conscience in the world?’, ‘Am I in quantum superposition’, and ‘Can the U.S. keep printing U.S. dollars?’

Among the most challenging questions are: ‘Who owns whom in democratic societies?’, ‘Do human beings long for death?’, and ‘Which people would benefit the most from you in warfare?’

The questions will be answered both by AI algorithms and by Ai Weiwei and shared on the CIRCA.ART website and social media.

The project takes inspiration from ‘The Heavenly Questions’, 172 questions for the gods written on the walls of a temple by Qu Yuan around 2,300 years ago.

‘This is not about freedom of speech,’ Ai said in a statement. ‘This is about freedom of questions. Everybody has the right to ask questions.’

The questions will be accompanied by an animation of a dragon, anticipating the arrival of the the Year of the Wood Dragon, which augurs unpredictable change and transformation that calls for both courage and caution.

‘If humans will ever be liberated, it will be because we ask the right questions, not provide the right answers,’ Ai said. —[O]

Main image: Ai Weiwei, Ai vs AI (2023). Courtesy the artist and CIRCA. Photo: BTS Images, Leroy Boateng.