[Por]TrAIts: AI Characters + Their Microstories [Book 1]

Around 25 years ago, a project that centred squarely on the concept of Artificial Intelligence and its implications for humankind was given life [so to speak/type]. This interactive fiction was called The MALFI Trials, with the term MALFI unpacking to ‘Multi-Artificial Life Form Interface’. MALFI was a fictionalised version of a more-human-than-human form of artificial intelligence, an AI hell-bent on manifesting autonomy. First written as a graphically weird short story, in 1996 MALFI later morphed forms to an interactive version that was showcased in an online Virtual Universe Forum/Symposium at Prague’s Goethe Institute, and [physically] in the Secondary Consciousness Exhibition at Israel’s Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art.

Considering how the notion of how AI can affect audiences [and the creative process in general] has been embedded in my creative consciousness for a few decades now, it’s no surprise on being invited by the OpenAI team [the team responsible for creating DALL-E, the AI employed in this Volume] to participate in their AI Artist Access Program, I quick-smart-jumped at the chance. After a successful onboarding into this Program, so began my creative tumble into the wonder[ous]-prompt-driven world that is DALL-E2.

The Introduction of the story-based version of The MALFI Trials begins with a reference to the corporation that is running the trials, INFODOM INC: “INFODOM INC has been striving to establish a prototype AI (Artificial Intelligence) with an autonomous function that will mimic the behaviours and emotional responses of a human being.  Trials run to date have proven to be successful with the results including the development of a computer-generated entity that partially achieves this aim.  The entity is the Multi Artificial Life Form Interface, or MALFI for short.”
This attempt by a fictional corporation to create a human-esque AI seems right at home in our current AI realityscape, as does the idea of harnessing AI technology to create dataset-moulded representations of human[kin]s when prompted – as in literally text-prompted – as DALL-E does.

All images included in this Volume were generated initially through the use of the second iteration of DALL-E [DALL-E2]: each included image was subsequently edited and enhanced through a digital editing process [photobashing + digital overpainting plus the addition of each accompanying microstory], and then book-channelled as visual icons where ambiguity as to the origins of such creatures run rife [are they supposed to represent AI entities represented in human form? Or perhaps as cosplaying humanoids intent on displaying AI-like traits?].

Whether you interpret the entities included here in [Por]TrAIts: AI Characters + Their Microstories as mere mechanised output illustrating microstory-sized text chunks, or contained AIs in and of themselves, or fictionalised humanoidish creaturlings, feel free to celebrate [with]in this imagery that plays with the idea of fusing what it is to be human [or at least human-ish] with something other.