Stephanie Dinkins approaches AI as a space of art, technocraft, and tinkering. She advocates for nuanced technological ecosystems that center care and work toward more equitable futures for underutilized, over surveilled communities. In Not the Only One, Stephanie has transformed 40 hours of oral history into a conversational deep learning chatbot/3D avatar that’s a composite of the three women she interviewed. It all comes together in a stunning, interactive conversation that explores the stories, myths, and perspectives of her culture.
Stephanie Dinkins in conversation with Not The Only One, the multigenerational, voice interactive AI entity designed, trained, and aligned with the concerns and ideals of her Black American family.
Based on Deep Q&A repository, original data derived oral history interviews augmented by related cultural texts, computer, Arduino, proximity sensors, microphone, and speakers.
2020 Not the Only One, V2 Avatar, becoming... presents a 3D modeled avatar created as a representational container for the artwork in progress. It’s a composite image that combines the features of the three women whose oral histories inform the AI entity.
The dataset for Not the Only One is a custom set based on oral history derived from three generations of women from the same Black family. This data is augmented with writings by the women, as well as books, songs, podcasts, and television they have consumed. Additional culturally attuned data provides context and broad narrative scope. N'TOO uses this information as the basis for its responses to questions.
A Recursive Neural Network (RNN)-based NLP chatbot based on Deep Q&A and original (small) data derived from approximately 40 hours of oral history interviews between members of the Dinkins and Curry families are augmented by related cultural texts that were created or experienced by the interviewees. It’s important to note that the AI communicates as a unique character and offers answers from a “first-person" perspective.
Here, storytelling, art, technology, and social engagement combine to create a new artificially intelligent narrative form. Based on small, community-derived data, Not the Only One works toward the creation of culturally specific, natural language-based AI that reflects the goals of the communities making them. By centering on oral history and creative storytelling methods, such as interactivity and verbal ingenuity, N’TOO sparks crucial conversations about AI and its impact on society, now and in the future
Stephanie Dinkins is a transmedia artist who creates experiences that spark dialog about race, gender, aging, and our future histories. Her work in AI and other media uses emerging technologies and social collaboration to work toward technological ecosystems based on care and social equity. Dinkins' experiences with and explorations of artificial intelligence have led to a deep interest in how algorithmic systems impact communities of color in particular, and all of our futures more generally.
Dinkins' experiments with AI have come full circle to recognize that the stories, myths, and cultural perspectives—aka data—that we hold and share form and inform society and have done so for millennia. She has concluded that our stories are our algorithms. We must value, grow, respect, and collaborate with each other's stories (data) to build care and broadly compassionate values into the technological ecosystems that increasingly support our future.
Our stories are passed down through generations, but what if those stories are passed through neural models instead of people? Join a discussion of how language in the age of AI takes on new forms and tells new stories. Artists Stephanie Dinkins and Pindar Van Arman and Poet Allison Parrish share how the language of AI has shaped their artwork and their creative process.