Starry heavens above you
Today's loudest ethical debate is AI alignment: how can we ensure that artificial intelligence built by big tech aligns with "our values"? But who constitutes this "we", and what values do "we" truly hold?
I explored this question through the only unfiltered corporate interface beyond vague website platitudes: job interviews. As both artist and developer, I participated in a series of technical interviews as a job candidate at companies operating in ethically contested domains: cryptocurrency trading, high-frequency trading, and software development with ties to Russian state-owned corporations.
During these standard conversations about qualifications and compensation, I introduced questions about Kant's categorical imperative: the principle that one should act only according to maxims that could become universal laws without contradiction.
The resulting videos have been anonymized, with all identifying information removed and dialogue re-enacted by actors. By recording without consent, I deliberately violated the very Kantian imperative I questioned my interviewers about, creating a moral tension central to the work.
The starry sky, referencing Kant's famous quote about "the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me", is projected only onto the gallery ceiling, suggesting that the moral imperative remains intact solely for the viewer, who observes but doesn't participate in this ethical contradiction.
