Barbican launches chatbot as part of new AI: More Than Human exhibition

If you go down to the Barbican today you’re sure of a big surprise. No, the powers that be haven’t decided to have a fire sale on some of London’s most desirable residences. More’s the pity.

Instead, the Barbican has worked with marketing technology agency Byte to “create a chatbot aimed at stimulating conversations around the role of AI within society,” as part of the surely-going-to-be-massive AI: More Than Human exhibition which opens today, 16 May 2019.

The bot has been programmed to chat to you about four questions raised by the Barbican’s blockbuster show. Why are you afraid of AI? Does data discriminate? Who’s driving the car? and What makes us human?

Heady stuff for sure. Byte co-founder Jamie Kenny says that he and his team are “extremely excited to see the launch of our chatbot to support this provocative and inspiring exhibition tackling questions at the forefront of our relationship with AI.”

It is aimed at AI-interested phone-users who can’t make it down to the London landmark to check the exhibition out in the flesh but still fancy engaging with one of the juicier topics of our topsy-turvy times.

The exhibition itself is billed as an exploration of “what it means to be human when technology is changing everything,” and features contributions from the likes of Lawrence Lek, Es Devlin, and the very, very, very clever people over at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.