The Supply Chain as Art – THOMAS.NET

Vast and complex production networks are the foundation of the products and structures of our daily lives. That’s why New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) currently features a 13-by-13-foot piece entitled “Anatomy of an AI System” with an abstract design of dots, lines, and diagrams. Dr. Crawford, one of the artists, explained that he wanted to “make the invisible visible.”

The new art piece describes the lifecycle of an Echo speaker from Amazon — from mining to manufacture to disposal. The work emerged from a desire to understand the impacts of the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) and to convey that AI is not abstract or intangible but rather a material technology based on data extraction, labor, and natural resources.

 

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