Would you like some assistance today?

With the recent mainstream explosion of AI, from text-to-image generators to open-ended multimodal conversations with machines, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we got here and what the future may look like. These questions were the basis for ‘Would you like some assistance today?’ - a highly interactive browser-based artwork that takes viewers on a journey of examining their relationship with AI. The story is told through a collaborative generative art experience in which a character named Spaghetty assists you in creating art.

The aesthetics, dialogue, and mannerisms of Spaghetty may feel nostalgic - they are directly inspired by Microsoft’s Clippy, one of the first, most memorable, and most famously annoying ‘productivity assistants’ of tech history. For those who persevere, the conversation with Spaghetty can take some unexpected turns - progressing from the basics of generative art (composition, color palettes, the infinite space of randomness) to more philosophical and controversial topics suddenly relevant in our race to outdo each other’s AIs and achieve artificial general intelligence (or, you know, the technological singularity).

This artwork was created as a commission for Metaversal. The concept and implementation are entirely by Fahad Karim. The project was independently released as a 1/1 NFT on Ethereum using a Manifold smart contract.