Hong Kong artists use AI to write song lyrics, revive an art critic, paint and more in Beyond the Singularity exhibition

Little did I expect when I walked into the exhibition called “Beyond the Singularity” that I would encounter the eloquent ghost of Nigel Cameron.

Seven years after his death, the former art critic at the Post, who dominated English-language exhibition reviews in Hong Kong from the 1970s to the 1990s, is still opining on recent local exhibitions. I was horrified, naturally.

Wong and her team had manually inputted reams of Cameron’s reviews for the Post to an AI programme, creating machine learning algorithms that can be used to generate reviews written in his style.

I may be biased – nobody wants to be replaced by a machine pretending to be a dead man – but reading the reviews closely, there were telling signs that the writer had never been to the exhibitions.

Another gratifying example of machine imperfection came from Chow Yiu-fai’s experience teaching AI how to write Cantonese lyrics about intimacy.

So Chow had to explain through prompt engineers acting as intermediaries with the machine how Cantonese rhymes work, and nuanced definitions of certain words – a lengthy exercise fully archived and displayed at the exhibition, and one which tested both parties’ patience.

If the idea of the singularity refers to a point when machines become so intelligent they escape from our control, Chow’s AI showed its independent spirit by becoming a bit shirty. At one point, AI decided to switch the dialogue to English and threw a minor tantrum.

The exhibition, presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council at Showcase, its in-house venue, is far more interesting than the many propagandist, one-dimensional “arts tech” spectacles because it questions and informs.

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The obvious issue about copyright in Wong’s appropriation of Cameron’s writings is touched upon in a display about a United States court case over AI art. (The relevant law in Hong Kong is currently being reviewed.)

Artist Kurt Chan Yuk-keung’s experience raised a different issue. He was using AI to create videos about the chemical reaction when space meets bread – a nonsensical pairing to test the machine’s ability to imagine.

Well, whatever AI saw, it was beyond human comprehension. For it decided that an image of a hand kneading flour was inappropriate and ordered Chan not to use it – he printed it out and hung it in the exhibition.

According to Leung, Chui is developing the project further to see whether he can incorporate machine painting into his practice.

Hong Kong design firm nnnnnnn.co used scaffolding – which is as low-tech as construction methods come – to create a mazelike structure that encourages interaction with the exhibits.

“Beyond the Singularity”, Showcase, UG/F, Landmark South, 39 Yip Kan Street, Wong Chuk Hang, Tue-Sun 12-7pm. Until April 7.