Aiml – Expresses how a neighbourhood is doing

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Now that we are collecting more and more data, we know more about a specific neighborhood. We can map the average income, the number of soot particles in the air, the amount of single people that live there and even the state of mind of the inhabitants. But, do we really want to know all that? Data-creature Aiml wants to initiate a conversation about this.

The digital 'creature' Aiml reflects the sentiment of the neighborhood; if the neighborhood is happy, then Aiml is great company. If the neighborhood is not doing well, Aiml will transform in a fierce beast that is difficult to tame.

– CASE MOVIE

– BACKGROUND

Aiml is a living breathing animal that reacts to his visitors and their available data in the neighbourhood. With the use of social media data and facial recognition, Aiml determines people’s sentiments. This input is used by Aiml to express what she feels by drawing.

Aiml (an abbreviation of 'Animal' and Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning) is developed by designstudio CLEVER°FRANKE in collaboration with many others including data engineer Bruno Jakic from design agency AI-applied: “With camera systems, sensors and social media data, we can increasingly map behaviors and emotions in a neighborhood. With the use of algorithms that learn from data, all kinds of smart services can be developed. The way in which data influences our daily activities is therefore undeniable.” says Gert Franke. With the help of data we can navigate conveniently from A to B, we consult whether it will be pouring rain and we know where our friends are. We tend to see data as tools, but in the meantime we have become entangled with data. That means we have to start thinking about our relationship with it. What do we actually want with data? Aiml wants to provoke answers to that question.

The smart datacreature absorbs as much information as possible about the neighborhood. Developer Bruno Jakic: “By geotagging tweets and subsequently determining their polarity, we get an impression of the neighborhood.” In normal human language, this means that Jakic filters location-specific information from social media. This information is supplemented with open data from the municipality and data from companies, and is then analyzed. If many positive words are used, we can conclude that there is an optimistic mood in the neighborhood. In short, the combined datamenu determines AIML’s state of mind. If the neighborhood feels good, AIML will feel happy. The datacreature will show this by making a beautiful pen drawing. However, if there is tension in the neighborhood, AIML’s hairs will stand upright or it will crawl into a corner in its cage.

– TESTING

Creative development by Jelle Reith and Ibo Ibelings

Gert: “We consciously opted for the confrontation with an animal. Pets also respond strongly to human emotions. People also choose animals that look like them. That symbiotic relationship between humans and animals fits well with whatever we want to put on the agenda with AIML. Data is part of us.” Bruno adds: “Aiml allows the fusion of data to be physically experienced and makes, what is now only visible for a few data freaks like us, transparent for everyone. This is important, because we have to have a social debate about what we want with data. We are therefore curious to know how people will interact with AIML and who is able to tame the datacreature.”

– RESULT