Hybrid Ecologies
2023
Hybrid Ecologies is an interdisciplinary research-creation project that explores the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and the environmental costs of this technology.
The project is an invitation to overcome the dichotomy between nature and technology, showing how AI inhabits and creates a hybrid ecology, constituted by interdependent relationships between human and non-human agencies.
As part of this research-creation project we created an interactive installation called “Hybrid Ecologies: Visualizing the Terrestrial Trace of Artificial Intelligence”. It was exhibited at the Centro Cultural La Moneda (Santiago, Chile) between December 2023 and April 2024. This work addressed critical questions about the intersection of AI development and water usage and explored the operational mechanisms of AI and its substantial water footprint. By making AI’s processes tangible, the project challenges the perception of AI as an immaterial entity and highlights the essential role that water and other natural resources play in sustaining AI technologies.
The installation invited people to generate their own images through the interaction with two AI models. These images were then projected on one of the walls. At the same time 32 ml of water falls from a sphere made of mushrooms. The visitors generate a collection of images co-created with the AI about the tension between technological development and environment, materializing the AI’s water consumption. As part of this project we calculated the water needed to generate an image using the stable diffusion model.