Robot dogs with hyper-realistic silicone heads modeled after world-renowned figures — including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso — can be seen roaming around a Berlin museum, occasionally “pooing” printed images of their surroundings which they’ve previously captured with integrated cameras.
The animals are part of an interactive installation by American artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) currently showing at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie.
Each printed image shows a snippet of reality transformed by AI to resemble the personality of the dog or, in other words, the worldview of the human figure on its shoulders (i.e., the
Picasso dog will produce images in Cubist style and Warhol’s in pop art).
It’s a commentary on how our perceptions are shaped by algorithms and technology platforms, the organizers of the exhibition write in the description of the event.
“In the past, our view of the world was shaped in part by how artists saw the world,” Beeple told the AP. “How Picasso painted changed how we saw the word, how Warhol talked about consumerism, pop culture, that changed how he saw those things.”
Now our view of the world is shaped by tech billionaires who own powerful algorithms that decide what we see and what we don’t see, the artist added.