Algorithms rule the world: stock trading, shopping recommendations, and everyday communication are aincreasingly controlled by artificial intelligence mechanisms. They function on the basis of efficiency and rationality therefore excluding any possibility of polysingularity. This transforms both our society and our minds, turning us into AI’s extension. I engage on a series of interviews with that emerging entity in order to find the human in it.

BOOK #1: AMAZON REMEMBERS

For one year I’ve been taking photographs of anything I could find around me on my iPhone. These photographs were then submitted to Amazon Remembers application, which promises to find the best match to the photo on Amazon.Co.Uk online shop.

In the manual to the application it says that a mix of artificial intelligence and human labor is used in the matching process.

When artificial intelligence falls short of recognizing the suitable product, the image gets sent to MechanicalTurk.Com. This website is owned and run by Amazon and is mainly used by the the companies who want to post routine jobs and by the people mainly from China and India who are willing to perform them. Each job is called a “hit” and brings a few cents to the person who performs it. Amazon calls the people who do the “hits” on Mechanical Turk “Artificial Articial Intelligence”.

This 218-page book catalogues our interactions in chronological order. On the left side of the page is the image I sent to Amazon, on the right side of the page is the image and text I received in return, usually within seconds or minutes.

The book is available on display at bbooks and Motto Distribution in Berlin, as well as Amazon online store. You can also view excerpts on www.iaaibook.com.

ISBN: 978-0-9569569-0-3