New Aesthetics of human-AI interplay

By Iskander Smit — Feb 18, 2025

Consider the emerging expressions of human-AI interactions and what that means for our interpretation of AGI. And lots of other notions as every week.

Interpretation by Midjourney

Thanks for landing here and reading my weekly newsletter. If you are new here, have a more extended bio on targetisnew.com. This newsletter is my personal weekly reflection on the news of the past week, with a lens of understanding the unpredictable futures of human-ai co-performances in a context of full immersive connectedness and the impact on society, organizations, and design. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to know more or more specifically.

Hi all!

Weeknote 327, Another week has been full of geopolitical turmoil, which is all very troubling. However, for this newsletter, I will exclude that topic unless it directly relates to tech developments. There is already enough to discuss…

What did happen last week?

Some of the usual work on some final adaptions to the research report. There was a consortium meeting on the Human Values for Smarter Cities that we are connected to with ThingsCon. I was also curious to see the Innovationlabs program's final results. One project triggered some thoughts; see below. See other projects here https://innovatielabs.org/ I can not fully grasp the learnings that can be applied; the process counts.

As the research report is approaching completion, I have more time to catch up and get inspired or connected for new activities (you know where to find me :) I had a lovely catch-up with Michael, Laurens, and Ingrid, making some plans already, and discussed the progress of the Robo-perspectives Kit with Lisa in preparation of a new workshop at TSH planned beginning of March. And yesterday, we sat with the board of Cities of Things to reflect on activities.

Next, we announced and sent out the invitation to contribute to RIOT publication and published the save-the-date for the next two Salons connected to the Generative Things program.

What did I notice last week?

Scroll down, for reference link.

No big announcements in AI tooling however OpenAI is foreshadowing GPT-5 as merging the reasoning AI
Perplexity is also offering Deep Research as a method of working; this can become a new standard interaction paradigm.
AI for good tasks is often health-related. Different is the use for creating narratives for True Crime documentaries. Not sp true but still the real value emerge from the interactions.
A lot of attention to humanoid announcements. Lot of intentions to offer specific ones by Meta, and some smaller players, or niches (bring the dead live).
Exoskeletons are popping up more and more, especially in combination with AI.
Every week, I share some of the critiques on our AI-infused society.

Triggered thought

A fascinating new aesthetic has emerged from the interplay between human artists and artificial intelligence in recent years. This aesthetic produces captivating visual experiences and offers insights into the nature of AI and its relationship with human creativity. Let's explore this phenomenon through several examples and consider its broader implications.

A recent performance at Innovation:Lab, titled The Pulse, showcased a dancer's performance interacting with live AI capture, creating a mesmerizing experience where human and machine responses intertwined. In that interaction , a new aesthetic of human-AI visual co-performance emerged, challenging our perceptions of art and technology.

This concept isn't entirely new. In fact, a complex setup at the ThingsCon Summer edition in 2022 called Maureen, an algorithmic blaze, created by Alexandra Fraser and Frederik De Bleser, explored similar territory.

More recently, the project Shadowplay by Joseph Lindley took this concept further, incorporating more real-time generation of new interpretations with a smart control mixer. The output creates a weird mix of hallucination and interpretation, sometimes more literal than other times

These examples highlight a crucial aspect of AI-human collaboration: It is a representation of what makes AI different from human intelligence.

This new aesthetic raises important questions about the nature of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and superintelligence. It is another form of intelligence that responds to our own intelligence, going beyond but needs to interact with us to be helpful to us. But AIs are also creatures on their own, not as robots but more in how the behavior of our tools interact. The new aesthetic of human- AI visual co-performance is a great form to understand how differently we see the world.

The consequence is that we may have a situation where the aspect that is not taken over by AGI is what is the most pure form of human; being you as David Mattin framed it. Or as Tina He describes, what is left for us is The Human Choice.

This evolving human-AI relationship extends beyond visual arts. For instance, the concept of deep research is rapidly evolving from a product feature into an interaction paradigm, as evidenced by its recent adoption by Perplexity. While this development is more about interfacing than aesthetics, it underscores the growing interplay between human and AI capabilities.

In a similar vein, artist Sougwen Chung has been working together with AI in producing paintings. Her work further exemplifies this new aesthetic, showcasing how AI can be both a tool and a collaborator in the creative process.

As we continue to explore and refine these human-AI collaborations, we're not just creating new forms of art—we're developing new ways of understanding intelligence itself, both artificial and human. This emerging aesthetic serves as a visual representation of our evolving relationship with AI, challenging us to reconsider the boundaries between human and machine creativity.

What are the plans for the coming week?

The coming and next week are holiday weeks (depending on the region), but events are organized like the Digital Social Innovation Lab (Rotterdam UAUS), and Sensemakers Amsterdam on deepfakes and digital humans.

References with the notions

Human-AI partnerships

GPT-5 is bundling the newest reasoning products.

Deep Research is becoming a type of interfacing and performing. Perplexity add it also to their way of being.

AI for enzyme design.

LukeW is looking at Conversational AI Usability

I heard about the MCP in deep diving Every podcast, and I am curious to dive in this one of Matt too.

True crime, but generated by AI. How true is that?

Robotic performances

Just another new humanoid, as we might expect more through the year, I recon. Like one from Meta.

Robots can bring the dead alive. Or Robots are bringing new life to extinct species

Exoskeletons are becoming more common with the help of AI.

Immersive connectedness

Meta sold 2 mln Ray-Bans, what feels quite moderate, but the aim is much higher

Tech societies

A long view on the AI wave by Nate. And Every is also sharing what AI’s next wave is that is upon us.

Gary Marcus: “Elon Musk’s terrifying vision for AI”

Ed Zitron is delivering an extensive critique on the level of generative AI.

Rogue states use AI to do real harm. Another positive outlook in these turmoil times.

“Robin Sloan shares deep thoughts on AI and language models. He questions whether it is acceptable for these models to create new content while leaving existing works untouched. This raises important questions about the impact and power of AI in our world.”

Food for thought: should I rename this category?

Why Meta's bleak 'AI vision' is winning out? And does it influence the position of OpenAI? And it aims for its own chips, too.

Apple is dealing with Alibaba apparently to be part of China’s market

EU is mobilizing substantial investment money for AI too.

Paper for this week

Melting Down Identity: Towards a Pedagogy of Complexity - This article presents a proposal to change some key methodological concepts and on introducing very early a blurring of identities and situational analysis in multi stakeholders context were change is necessary, either through innovation or regeneration.

Bonelli, Federico. (2024). Melting Down Identity: Towards a Pedagogy of Complexity. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381669853_Melting_Down_Identity_Towards_a_Pedagogy_of_Complexity

See you next week!