Lucie Brouwer, Nazli Cila, Vera van der burg
Explainable AI is important to building AI we can trust. Currently, explainable AI seems detached from the physical world: it only considers the digital world. This is also true when developing AI policies. Furthermore, methods of explainable AI are solely digital. Explainable AI should include the physical side of this technology as well as end users' physical experiences, as experiences have great communicative value. There are an ever-growing number of tools utilising generative AI available to the larger public, the underlying reason for this project's focus.
We used ecological principles to come to a more holistic view of Generatiove AI. Researching gen AI in this way exposed the physical side of this technology, while also including the digital side.
We found that the gen AI ecosystem is invisible to users and that this ecosystem is unhealthy, as there is no chance for a natural cycle of materials.
We therefore set out to make the invisible visible. We achieved this by creating an experience where users engaged in direct interaction with a material flow of AI. There are many material flows in the AI ecosystem, so from all these streams, we chose water to work with.
The final installation allows users to explore the flow of water from its source, through the infrastructures of generative AI and to places where it is discarded. Moreover, it also offers two changes to the current system: integrating an interface into the infrastructure, and reusing water by tapping it after use in the industry of AI.
The parts of the installation effectively inform  visitors about the industry behind gen AI. Visitors' interaction with the installation also provokes thoughts about the ecosystem needed to use gen AI tools. However, as the installation doesn't offer a way to deal with current reality, this provides an interesting theme for discussion.
