A Needle in a Haystack

DDTLab Varvara & Mar

Everyone knows that finding a needle in a haystack is an impossible task. But is it for a robot and AI system? Our intention is literally making an industrial arm robot to search for a needle in a haystack. The idea is to place a Yaskawa industrial robot into an old barn full of hay, where a golden needle will be hidden. If the needle is found, then the next needle will be hidden. All found needles will be displayed along with the installation. The artwork can be viewed as an act of challenging technology with an impossible task from a human point of view. AI is often treated as a black box that can do magic. But is it as intelligent as it is claimed? There are many experts, like Kate Crawford, saying that AI is neither artificial nor intelligent. Or like Jeff Besos calls it “artificial artificial intelligence”, because in the end AI is backed up by exploitation of crowd workers and badly paid employees.  Apart from questioning the intelligence of technology, the artwork makes a comment on the relation of man and land as well, which is another concept layer of the work.

---