Google is opening Dataland, the world’s first AI museum, on June 20 in Los Angeles. The first exhibition displays AI artworks generated in real time.
Ever since AI image generators went mainstream, the debate over whether AI-generated art is real art hasn’t let up. Those who don’t consider AI to be art say that if a machine does the creating and anyone can prompt it, there’s no skill involved, and therefore no art is produced.
The counter-argument is equally persistent, as defenders of AI-generated artworks often claim that AI is just a tool, and that every major technological breakthrough, like the camera or the computer, was met with the same skepticism before eventually being accepted as a legitimate creative medium.
Google’s position in this debate is clear. Which is no surprise, as the company is investing billions in AI infrastructure. And now, in efforts to encourage people to use its AI even more, Google is opening Dataland on June 20, which it’s calling the world’s first AI arts museum.
Located inside The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry-designed building in Los Angeles, the museum spans 25,000 square feet. The museum is built around a collaboration with media artist Refik Anadol, who has worked with Google since 2016.
The inaugural exhibition is called Machine Dreams: Rainforest, and is powered by an AI model trained on “an extensive dataset of the natural world.” It generates 1.2 billion pixels of visuals in real time and reacts to visitors dynamically. The space also generates soundscapes, real-time emotion sensing, and algorithmically produced scents.
Google says that the museum is powered by its Gemini models, which run on Google Cloud. So, everything is generated inside one of Google’s AI data centers and is streamed to the museum.
Alongside the museum opening, Google Arts & Culture is funding an AI Artist Residency, giving four artists $25,000 grants each, along with mentorship from Refik Anadol Studio and access to Google’s machine learning tools. Their work will be shown at Dataland and on the Google Arts & Culture website later this year.
Google’s AI museum will undoubtedly initiate a fired-up debate on social media, and we can’t wait to see the first reactions.
Via: Smithsonian Magazine
