King's College London

On Friday 23 May Bush House’s undercroft The Vault was the venue for the first public showing of ‘Humans in the Loop’, a new collaborative musical between academics at King’s and creatives concerned with the future of AI.

Presenting a diagnosis of the global impact of how we currently use artificial intelligence, the workshop concert drew on multiple perspectives to show the whole of the AI journey – from the tech bros threatening to ‘move fast and break things’ with their latest model, to the precarious data labellers moderating harmful content, to users both excited and nervous about the possibilities of the new technology.

Fin Capslock, the Sam Altman stand-in, grapples with the parallels between bringing an AI model and a child into the world and recognises that humans need more care than the cradle of Silicon Valley gives to the impact of AI. Mumbai-based data labeller Lakshmi confronts the twin pressures of raising a child and training an AI on a low wage, while mother and daughter Jane and Sasha deal with the corrosive effects AI can have on self-image for young people.   

The musical stresses the shared humanity of all ‘humans in the loop’ using and creating AI. However, it does not shy away from the political when calling for a union amongst the data labellers working outside the Global North, where human intelligence is employed to ensure platforms like Meta do not surface disturbing content like murder or suicide.

Dr Johanna Walker, Teaching and Research Fellow in the Department of Informatics, and academic voice behind ‘Humans in the Loop’ alongside director Lucy Bell and composer James Otto, said “Humans in the Loop is a compelling insight into the unseen environmental, social and human cost that AI as we know it has on the world. We try to put plainly in song the techno-utopian visions that are pushing AI into our lives, and how that concerns the audience in their own lives, whether that’s juicing up a CV or their kids asking health questions of an AI chatbot.

“Art has the capacity to break through the shell most people develop in response to the scare cycle of AI in the news, and we hope that this musical helps people recognise the genuine and relevant issues around AI – and inspires them to do something about it.” 

Following the 35-minute performance, the floor opened up to a Q&A session with Johanna, Lucy, James, Jennifer Ding, Director of Boundary Object Studio, and Drs Albert Meroño Peñuela and Mike Cook from the Department of Informatics. The panel spoke about the future of AI in the creative industries and beyond, examining how technology will continue to impact humanity’s ability to make decisions independently.

Dr Cook said of the dangerous relationship between AI and young people the musical brings up, ‘One of the problems around AI legislation is that we get the vibe that it works, we act like it works and we legislate on those vibes. If this was a drug, we would be appalled at how easy it is to access. We don’t know the long-term effects of AI on young people yet – we’ll only find those out in 5, 10 years’ time.’

‘Humans in the Loop’ is funded by the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence, King’s Culture and the Department of Informatics, and is a King’s Culture Sanctuary initiative. An earlier podcast musical about AI, ‘Destination Hallucination’ can be found on SoundCloud.