DSU at the AI UK

Daga represented the Data Science Unit in a panel at the AI UK conference talking climate, art and AI

Daga (D. Panas, Data Scientist) was one of the panelists at the AI UK conference organized by the Alan Turing Institute. The conversation was part of the Climate Action Stage and explored the topic of how art and artificial intelligence can synergize to create compelling narratives enabling the public to constructively engage with the reality of climate change. The event also marks the official launch of a flagship digital outlet of the Edinburgh Futures Institute:

The New Real website (external content)

Be sure to visit and explore this exciting digital space, where an interdisciplinary team of artists, designers, creative producers and researchers are, in their own words:

presenting astonishing new forms of artistic experience for a world recovering from COVID-19, and articles and videos that reveal the ways data systems and artificial intelligence reflect and shape our social reality.

DSU in The New Real

Head over to the Platform section of The New Real website to learn more about the part of The New Real project we are involved in: a web app interface for artists to train their very own Generative Adversarial Network, play with its latent space, and explore climate change data. There is also a video there with bonus content (spot the bearded lady!).

If you want to know more about the tech side, the Platform chains together a few algorithms to make it possible for artists to co-create with the AI. The key parts are a Transfer GAN, differential evolution and k-means clustering. Together, these manage a reasonable approximation of 'latent space crafting'; that is, they allow artists to design a visual dimension in latent space simply by data selection. 

And below is a teaser video of training progress of our favorite demo GAN.

Written by Daga