Despite the proliferation of research on how people engage with and experience algorithmic systems, the materiality and physicality of these experiences are often overlooked. We tend to forget about bodies. The Embodying the Algorithm1 project worked with artists to explore the experience of translating algorithmically produced performance instructions through human bodies. As performers interpreted the rules of engagement produced by GPT-3, they struggled with the lack of consideration the rules showed for the limits of the human body. Performers made sense of their experience through personification, reflexivity, and interpretation, which gave rise to three modes of relating with the algorithm – agonistic, perfunctory, and agreeable. We demonstrate that collaboration with algorithmic systems is ultimately impossible as people can only relate to algorithmic systems (a one-way relation) due to the material limitations of algorithmic systems for reciprocity, understanding, and consideration for the human body.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580885
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2023.acm.org/)