ARTIFICIAL BEE COLONY 5 | AUTOMATED BIAS I JOHN CRONIN

2023|6’X4’182X122CMS

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JOHN CRONIN - Artificial Bee Colony 5 : Automated Bias

The title comes from the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm. This algorithm is a swarm-based optimisation technique that simulates the foraging behaviours of honeybees and is used to solve continuous optimisation problems. So many of the algorithms that are beginning to govern our daily lives, are trained by our culture, and are learning to automate historical bias. AI perpetuates a feedback loop that can degrade the abilities and experiences that people consider essential to being human at a time when the world is coming to terms with historical, racial and gender injustices.

 Automated bias refers to the phenomenon where biases are perpetuated or even exacerbated by automated systems or algorithms. These biases can arise from various sources, including biased data used to train algorithms, flawed algorithms themselves, or biased decision-making processes encoded into the systems by their designers.

The dots play with harmonies and contrasts. They undergo change within the piece, the red dots becoming visible when they enter the dark top section while the pale blue ones become tarnished after having been born out of the large pale blue swirling gestural movement. The grey-green ones are neutral, non-functioning, maybe spent forces. Some of the dots have a stillness at odds with the background but others are caught up in the maelstrom of events. The underpainting shows through them like a record of what came before them while later layers obscure them. Dots have a resonance that is correct for what I am putting forward. There is something complete about a dot. Within a composition dots can be free elements, units that can develop, migrate and evolve. They can become corrupted, mutated or be cloned. They can be both a chaotic and a unifying element.