DA-I: Slay or Nay? is a video project based on speculations of a future permeated by AI. Set twenty years from now, in the year 2044, DA-I: Slay or Nay? is a collection of three short mockumentary street interviews in which the young adults of London divulge their opinions on a new AI-based technology which has been adopted and implemented by governments worldwide (and particularly in the UK) — a biometrically personalised daily assistant known as DA-I.
The premise for this fictional AI comes from the extensive research and series of world-building workshops conducted by the cross-disciplinary AI-VIS collective (Sara Christova, Cornelia Skrok, Samah Asif, Neon Lee, and Shuhei Okubo). Through these exercises the group examined current trends and social patterns related to the exponential growth of technology and its impact on both the individual and an increasingly globalised society. What began to emerge were common concerns about the role of human autonomy in the face of progressively incomprehensible algorithms and artificial intelligence, notions of productivity and personal fulfillment in a world of cognitive automation, as well as an awareness of the ambivalent nature of these arguments when considering the impacts of these new technologies on marginalised communities, particularly the myriads of benefits and detriments when it relates to neurodiversity. Can fully accessible technology truly exist?
A particular shared appreciation for the speculative science fiction format allowed the group to channel their collective contemplations through a familiar and ubiquitous fashion by asking the open ended question “what if?”. Drawing inspiration from a plethora of extant sci-fi films and series, the idea of DA-I (a panoptic, omnipresent global technology based on personal and individual patterns of daily activity), became the anchor for a glimpse into an exaggerated possible future which we may be heading towards.
As the main character, Nova, a globally popular social media street journalist, asks the local (and virtual) young adults about their opinion of this new tech, she is met with debatable self-awareness, surprising perceptivity, mildly disturbing commentary, and philosophical observation. As all of this resonates quietly within the monologues driven by her seemingly innocent questions, the viewer is presented with a simple yet integral underlying concept — that human character will persevere and no matter how things may change, at the end of the day, people will be people (unless they’re secretly an AI).
