A piece by Varvara & Mar, in the frame of the project Technological Unemployment, curated by Adonay Bermúdez.
Varvara & Mar (Tartu, Estonia, 1984; and Barcelona, Spain, 1981).
Keep smiling, 2021.
Interactive art. (JavaScript, HTML)
Varying dimensions.
An increasing number of jobs that used to be performed by humans are being taken over by machines. In addition to handing over repetitive tasks to robots, we are asking machines to provide answers and solve problems by using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne studied the probability of computerisation of over 702 occupations in the US and found that approximately 47% of Americans had jobs at high risk of automation as a result of recent and anticipated advances in AI and machine learning. Studies in the UK and Japan put the figures at 35% and 49% respectively.
Artificial intelligence technologies are widely used to make decisions in place of humans in many fields, from medical diagnoses to the hiring or firing of workers. Humanity has therefore reached a point where machines can decide about people while ignoring all the sensitive and emotional information that a person would take into account. For example, it is a known fact that Amazon automatically tracks its employees in warehouses and automated systems will dismiss a worker if his or her performance has fallen below the set value. Of course, this AI algorithm does not take into account all the underlying reasons why a human may work slower on certain days.
Varvara&Mar want to put automated human hiring, skill testing and machine dismissal systems under scrutiny. The artists propose a piece consisting of a web-based experience in which the audience is confronted by the “master” artificial intelligence agent who asks the user to smile and keep smiling.
