Tezos

GPTSD - The Human / Machine Feedback Loop (Dreamer 154)

Creator

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Description

Can trauma transfer from human to machine to human?   GPT: Generative Pre-trained Transformer is an open-source neural network (machine learning) model trained on internet data to generate new unique text.  PTSD: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, or other threats.  This series of text and images function as an exploratory case study that magnifies the risks of transferring human bias and trauma to machine learning models. The output of these models can affect humans by reinforcing unintended inputs (positive or negative). These models can be distributed through social media or manifest in law-making, credit applications, education and other ways we may not yet understand. A feedback loop: we are what we consume—and we consume what we are.   The following generated GPTSD machine dream texts and images were all output in one session (Dec 2020) after training on 593 dream diary entries by an individual suffering from PTSD after experiencing war. These dream descriptions were cropped directly from a larger text and intentionally unedited except for a few minor deletions for clarity. ~~~ In my dream: War’s a possibility. We should prepare. I go to a war memorial located in a residential area with many trees and shrubs. At first, the area is empty. Then there is a tapping, the tapping becomes regular. I think, “This is when the bomb’s going to go off.” When I emerge, the man I’m fighting has a wall painting hung up in his bedroom. It’s similar to the style of Canetti’s da Vinci, but much looser, less detailed, and much of it pasted together. He’s done this only once. The painting shows a U.S.S.R. submarine in World War I. The foreground is green; behind it, a burning U.S.S. Maine. The capsule rises like a Russian cathedral, like the Russian Orthodox church in Moscow, like the Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine. At the same time, I’m engulfed. ~~~  The GPTSD book and website will have further information about this project. ryanthompson.name/project-gptsd  Humans become the stories in which we tell ourselves—and our machines. The tools we create, always manifest the people we come to be.   Dreamer 154 (Text Skeleton) 1800 x 2280 pixels Ryan Thompson - December 2020  [Once all Dreamers have been collected a second artwork related to the “Text Skeleton” will be airdropped to the collector holding this work]