Hiroshi Sugimoto on AI

AR: Some of the models you photograph, like those based on a Kuen surface, start off as  computer renderings that can only be created as an object by a five-armed robotic machine. How do you feel about generative art, machine learning and AI?

HS: I’m kind of scared of it. Once it can do a job better than a human, what can a human do? Particularly in terms of the skills involved in thinking and imagination. If a human can’t do as good of a job as the machine, then what is the point of a human? The brain has to be trained to keep thinking. If you don’t have to think deeply – if you let the computer think for you – then the human brain will have to become something else.  

AR: That’s transhumanism, isn’t it? Where humans interface fully with technology. Do you think that’s inevitable?

HS: I’m just glad I’m not going to be living in that future. But the world will end very soon in my estimation. For example, if you compare last year’s global temperature with this year, it’s one or two degrees hotter now – global warming is now global boiling. I think the end is coming pretty soon.

From ArtReview Oct 2023