The Wind and the Song: the Treachery of AI

Jono Baggaley
Lewis Heriz
Jono Baggaley, Lewis Heriz
Increasingly we're surrounded by synthetic images, text and voices. Our new film questions what we're really looking at, reading or listening to when we encounter the outputs of generative AI systems.……
Brightly-coloured shapes contain a pop-art rendering of a tobacco pipe with the words 'Ceci n'est pas une'

As chatbot use among children and young people explodes, now is the time to confront urgent questions about what it means to be human alongside technology that pretends to be us.

In our new film, The Wind and the Song: The Treachery of AI, artist and animator Lewis Heriz asks what are we really looking at, reading or listening to when we encounter the outputs of generative AI systems?

It's been a while since we last published so if you've recently joined us, welcome to Fully Human! Technology has continued to move fast and break a few things, and we've been working carefully on thoughtful responses.

Today we're launching our new film, The Wind & the Song: the Treachery of AI.  We trailed the first part of this video essay last year, now you can watch the full film.

Public debate is rightly occupied with questions about the impact of AI technologies. But one question remains surprisingly under-explored: anthropomorphism – the ‘making-human’ of technology.

The Wind and the Song deconstructs how these technologies exploit anthropomorphism and blur the boundaries between being and technology. Lewis Heriz uses old techniques such as film, stop motion and found footage, alongside AI, to explain the trick and examine the consequences of humanised technology, revealing ​a peculiar paradox unique to our time: to access reality we must almost constantly engage with illusions.

​The film acts as a different kind of thinking partner to chatbots: Light-hearted and playful, it invites reflection and interpretation. It also offers a timely reminder that we do not need to be passive observers of technological change, but can be active participants with both the capacity to imagine, and the right to create, a more human-centred future.

We hope you enjoy this meditation on our current moment. If you find it a thoughtful companion please do share it with others!