It is exactly 100 years ago that Sigmund Freud wrote “The Uncanny.” The Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term “uncanny valley” for machines that are so humanoid that we shudder. It is therefore unsurprising that machines that can learn, think, and act seem uncanny. AIs are increasingly part of our lives, our social connections, our political and economic activity. This raises the question what sort of a living creature the omnipresent AI already is and will become.
In society, politics, business, ecology—in short, as a civilization—we have to develop new values together with our machines. UNCANNY VALUES: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & YOU opens up a number of perspectives on an area that is developing rapidly but is, at the same time, increasingly difficult to understand. The exhibition centers on questions of culture and technology, being human, power, control, and orientation in the uncanny valley of artificial intelligence.