BERLIN — Robot dogs with hyper-realistic silicone heads modeled after world-renowned figures \u2014 including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso \u2014 can be seen roaming around a Berlin gallery, occasionally \u201cpooing\u201d printed images of their surroundings which they’ve previously captured with integrated cameras. <\/p>\n
The animals are part of an interactive installation by American artist Beeple<\/a> (Mike Winkelmann) currently showing at Berlin’s New National Gallery<\/a>. <\/p>\n 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). <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cIn the past, our view of the world was shaped in part by how artists saw the world,\u201d Beeple told the AP. \u201cHow Picasso painted changed how we saw the world, how Warhol talked about consumerism, pop culture, that changed how he saw those things.\u201d<\/p>\n Now our view of the world is shaped by tech billionaires who own powerful algorithms that decide what we see and what we don\u2019t see, the artist added. <\/p>\n \u201cThat’s an immense amount of power that I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve fully understood, especially because when they want to make a change, they don\u2019t need to lobby the U.N. They don\u2019t need to get something through Congress or the EU, they just wake up and change these algorithms.\u201d<\/p>\n The dogs also wear heads in Beeple\u2019s own image. <\/p>\n Lisa Botti, the curator of the exhibition in Berlin, said that artificial intelligence<\/a> was one of the phenomena most impacting our lives today and that \u201cmuseums are the places where society can reflect\u201d on such transformations, which is why she wanted to have Beeple\u2019s work shown. <\/p>\n