In an internet environment where all news is flattened by algorithms, AT Feeds provides information on things like Australia’s crocodiles in need of a PR boost and the high price of coffee, African countries negotiating nature debt financing, and teenagers in need of a PR boost. Let them stand on the same playing field where they can win. A lawsuit was filed in Montana Superior Court asserting the constitutional right to a clean environment.
“A person’s understanding of the world seems to be built on the basis of a given algorithm,” Kaiser says. “We understand that we are very easily influenced and manipulated. The information you receive shapes your worldview.”
Kaizar has set up RSS feeds from major news sites such as the BBC, NPR, FOX News, Los Angeles Times, Politico, and the Guardian. Every two weeks she enters articles from that feed into ChatGPT and asks it to generate a single article. Kaizar then posts the ChatGPT as is, without changing the AI-generated text.
She asks ChatGPT to generate 20 headlines for her article and chooses one. She also asks the AI bot to generate images, which she uses as the basis for her own illustrations to accompany her articles. Kaizar is a graphic designer by profession, previously worked at WHYY, and is currently on staff at the Philadelphia architecture firm KiernanTimberlake.
The AT feed post includes an estimate of the amount of carbon dioxide produced to run ChatGPT and create the column. Each column produces CO2 equivalent to driving approximately 30 miles in a car, most of which comes from the art materials used to create the illustrations.
Before AT Feed, Kaiser had created a series of detailed prints depicting endangered plants and animals, some of which are becoming more vulnerable to climate change. The set was displayed at the Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown and is currently touring museums across the country.
When Kaizar approached TheArtBlog with the idea for AT Feed, he admitted that the idea was half-baked. She didn’t know what to make of her AI bot.
Roberta Fallon, founding director of TheArtBlog, agreed. She considers AT Feed to be an online art project disguised as editorial journalism.
“We see this in a long history of activist art,” Fallon said. “The way the news media provides arguments, or more than just bullet points, about what’s going on with climate change and how it leaves us with an absurd level of understanding. I’m criticizing what’s going on.”
Kaizar said he was figuring out what AT Feed was on the fly. She has committed to posting every two weeks, which will probably last a year.
At least it’s cathartic.
“It’s a place to vent your feelings, thoughts, and anxieties, instead of just going to happy hour with friends and wondering, ‘What’s going on in the world right now?!’ “I wouldn’t say it’s productive, but it’s an outlet.”
