From the illusionist artificial intelligence to the authentic

Artificial intelligence (AI) has created a divide as AI hypers and AI doomers presenting on one hand, a positive account and outlook of AI, and on the other, a very problematic one. At the core, it seems, this divide arises from the tension between what these machines are and capable of, and how they appear to be and what they claim to do. This requires thus attending to what these things are. To do so, I propose decoupling ‘artificial intelligence’ expression and taking a pause with the word ‘artificial’. Starting with a search of the meaning of this word, I arrive at a space where I explore ‘artificial’ as human-made and ‘artificial’ as ‘not sincere’. This leads me to a discussion on the ethics and aesthetics of ‘artificial’ as ‘not sincere’ and its commitment to creating an illusion. Through this, I open a space for considering artificial as more-than-human-made.