AI Robotics Design
Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
July 16, 2021 – April 10, 2023

With Sami Haddadin one of the worldwide leading researchers, innovators and eminent authority in the field of robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues the series of contemporary design positions in the Paternoster Hall, to which Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum has been inviting international protagonists of design every year since 2015. Robotics and artificial intelligence are current topics that pose great hopes but also challenge to our times and society in the era of digital transformation. In the field of design, too, we can expect innumerable new tasks to arise in the formation of processes and products.

Sami Haddadin and his team have devised an exhibition for Die Neue Sammlung that in four chapters illustrates the emergence, present, and future of robotics and AI, enabling visitors to experience them. Chapter I addresses the history of AI from its beginnings as an idea to Leibniz‘ calculating machine through to intelligent robots and algorithms today. Chapter II presents a dystopian vision around the future of AI applications and the way AI develops if it is understood as purely a data-hungry, omniscient, and analyzing digital technology. By way of example, surveillance using facial recognition and personality change is demonstrated. These scenarios may become reality if human beings and the benefits for humans are not placed at the center of technological development.

Sami Haddadin is a professor of Robotics and Systems Intelligence at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). There, he is the director of the Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MSRM), which is an integrative research centre in the field of machine intelligence. The goal of this centre is to explore the fundamentals of robotics, perception and artificial intelligence in order to develop innovative and sustainable technological solutions for the central challenges of our time. With the expertise of more than 50 professors from a wide range of disciplines and close cooperation with institutions in the fields of philosophy, ethics and law, responsible technology development and subsequent integration into society are ensured. Through lighthouse initiatives, scientific and technical results are transferred into the real world in the context of globally relevant topics of our time, such as the future of health, work and mobility.

In contrast to this, Chapter III shows the link between humans and machines. It is based on the concept of embodied AI, i.e., artificial intelligence in a complex body that develops from the model and the understanding of the human body and its mind, instead of AI as an approach based purely on data analysis. At the end of this development lies a symbiosis of human and machine. The final Chapter IV constitutes the heart of the exhibition: the ever-first human-collective-controlled machine in the Paternoster Hall. For this purpose, the Paternoster lifts are integrated into a machine extended by interconnected robots controlled by humans, creating a seemingly endless document.

Here, the robots are given instructions by visitors both on-site as well as via an app from outside the exhibition. Hence, AI can be used to present an exemplary physical depiction of the mental state of society. In order to publicize the controls via the app within the digital space, at the start of the exhibition, a series of internationally well-known figures from the fields of research, culture, and media are invited to send their instructions and ideas to the machine.

Sami Haddadin himself had this to say: “Intelligent robots are assistants to human beings and it will stay that way for a long time. Anything else is science fiction, albeit, an inspiring and fascinating one.” After all, during the development process of AI, human beings will always play a formative role in their tasks and ways of working. In the course of the exhibition a catalogue will be developed, which will also document the progression of the human-machine during the exhibition. There will also be a varied accompanying program with workshops for different age groups and presentations.

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