TRINITY COLLEGE’S AUSTIN ARTS CENTER NAVIGATES AI & RACIAL BIAS
THE WIDENER GALLERY PRESENTS DENNIS DELGADO’S EXHIBITION, ARE YOU ALSO DIVERGENT, FRIEND?
Dennis Delgado, Moonlight
You can’t go anywhere without hearing about AI these days. Once an obscure sci-fi invention of the distant future, AI has quickly woven itself into the fabric of daily life. Its almost unimpeded infiltration into society has accelerated at a frightening speed, leaving chasms between its application and ethics. Whether its racist algorithms, nonconsensual surveillance or the abuse of digital girlfriends, technological progress is butting heads with lingering antiquated values.
Visual artist Dennis Delgado investigates life as a person of color in the age of AI with his exhibition, Are You Also Divergent, Friend? Presented at Trinity College’s Austin Arts Center, within the Widener Gallery, the poignant collection of works address how racism and unconscious bias can leak into algorithms and infect computer consciousness. AI is notoriously bad at recognizing Black faces. While this might seem benign, this error has deadly results. When AI is used in banking or loan systems, Black applicants are more likely to be denied. When the technology is used for police facial recognition, the automated system disproportionately misidentifies Black people, leading to false arrests. In January 2020, Robert Williams was detained for 30 hours after AI incorrectly identified him as the burglar in a watch store robbery. It’s hard not to feel suspicious of the city’s latest partnership with Google as the digital titan plans to build an AI center near Dunkin’ Park. AI centers clearly disenfranchise communities of color. With an influx in government-sanctioned violence via ICE and covert surveillance, existing as a person of color, taking up space in public, has become all the more precarious.
The display is comprised of four projects, including video, tapestries, installation and collage, utilizing visual data to reveal how sight, even when enhanced by technology, can still be blurred by unconscious bias. Discussing The Dark Database, Delgado explains, “The Dark Database series looks at the bias inherent in facial recognition systems. Current studies show that facial recognition systems are less able to detect a face in an image when the skin tone of that face is not Caucasian. The undetected faces are then not enrolled in the systems’ database. As a result many of the systems are trained using datasets which contain fewer people of color, making those same systems inaccurate when recognizing or identifying individuals of color. The Dark Database is a kind of record of visibility and representation as seen through the eyes of artificial intelligence.”
Aptly named, Are You Divergent, Friend explores the implicit Eurocentric bias found in AI technology and the pervasive need to identify an “other” within the colonialist gaze. Delgado’s exhibition questions if computers, supposedly super-human devices made by imperfect human beings, can transcend the prejudices that hinder society.
Are You Also Divergent, Friend is on view until December 5, 2025. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, November 6, from 4pm - 6pm.
