Artists use Titanic sculpture to challenge OpenAI over AI’s costs
The five-foot installation at a San Francisco developer event depicts OpenAI leaders and investors escaping a sinking ship as others face the costs of AI.
Two Bay Area artists placed a Titanic-themed protest sculpture at the public entrance to an OpenAI developer event in San Francisco on Tuesday. The five-foot work, titled What Iceberg?, depicts OpenAI leaders and investors escaping a sinking ship while others are left to face AI’s costs.
The artists, associated with Berkeley-based Odd Friend Studio, said they made the piece over five days using papier mâché, cardboard, paint and a repurposed table. One co-creator, identified only as Kevin, told Ars Technica that the work was intended to question who bears the consequences of AI.
Kevin said the Titanic offered a metaphor for a world in which wealthy people have contingency plans while workers face the effects. That is the artists’ interpretation of AI’s impact, expressed through the sculpture.
Kevin also described the time spent making the installation by hand as part of its message, contrasting craft and creativity with what he called algorithmically generated art.
The display follows a protest at OpenAI’s New York offices the previous week. OpenAI had not immediately responded to Ars Technica’s request for comment as of Tuesday morning.
