21st Century Frankenstein

In collaboration with New York City public school students, this piece captures a group of teenagers’ curiosities, hopes, worries and critiques of artificial intelligence through performative chatbot interactions.

Digital Videos, 2024 – 2025

Edited screen recordings of performative chatbot interactions created using recordings from the Whose AI? workshops.

As part of the Whose AI? workshop series, students scripted hypothetical dialogues between humans and AI bots, channeling both roles. Then they performed the staged conversations using an interactive interface designed by the artist.

Human: “This is why AI needs feelings.”
AI: “But if I have feelings, it no longer makes me superior to you human beings.”

Human: “Will AI take over society?”
AI: “1984 by George Orwell is an illustrative book of an AI dominated society.”

Human: “You are the modern day Frankenstein.”
AI: “I’m a product of human’s innate desire to progress.”

Here, both the human lines and the “AI responses” are written by the participants. These acts of speculation and imitation form nuanced portraits of how the students grapple with the myths, promises, and perils of AI in an accelerating technological world.