Algorithmic author

If you're going to stage an exhibition dealing with the expansive subject of how humanity will live tomorrow, you'd better come up with something innovative. Tokyo's Mori Art Museum (MAM), in an attempt to make a show extend far beyond the domain of art, landed upon the notion of inviting an artificial-intelligence (AI) suite to define the show's title.

Thus, MAM collaborated with Watson, computer giant IBM Corporation's enterprise AI service, application and tool. With three layers of AI models and IBM's extensive specialist knowledge, Watson is capable of efficient learning without starting from scratch.

"Creativity isn't generated from nothing, but from the unexpected connections of things and ideas," says MAM director Nanjo Fumio. "Watson proposed all sorts of thinkable words, but from there, it had been a collaborative work between us and Watson. I imagine this may be how humans and AI will interact in the future." It's certainly something viewers can consider as they stroll around Future and the Arts: AI, Robotics, Cities, Life－How Humanity Will Live Tomorrow, on until March 29.

To arrive at the show's title, Watson was fed a range of text data－including planning documents for the show, titles of MAM's exhibitions over the last 15 years and interviews with Nanjo (also the exhibition's curator). Watson then analyzed the data, extracted keywords such as "future", "arts" and "human", and conjured more than 15,000 AI-generated options. From there, Watson reduced the selections to 150, from which the project team chose.