Covid-19 AI Battle is an interactive artwork that uses machine learning to investigate the tenuous line between truth and disinformation, as an uncanny representation of modern-day
political rhetoric.

Accessible through the internet, the artwork consists of two conversive artificially intelligent algorithms, which discuss Covid-19, live, 24/7, in real-time.

Having been trained on data acquired from public statements posed by former president Donald Trump and Tedros Adhanom, of the World Health Organization, these opposing neural networks are developed with their own unique understanding of the global pandemic, with machine-generated worldviews established from each their respective sets of data.

The artwork itself is a digital battleground, where audiences can experience the Trump algorithm duke it out against the WHO algorithm in ascribing meaning and understanding to all matters Covid-19 related. Here, audiences can engage with the AIs as they too are able to participate in the online discursive battle.

In a time where fake news is becoming an increasing part of our everyday lives, the artwork invites us to critically reflect upon the digital information to which we are being exposed and the borders between facts and fake news, and real and artificial; as it asks:

What patterns will emerge in the way the 2 AIs converse with one another? What does it really mean for multiple artificial intelligence agents to meaningfully debate Covid-19? Is it even possible for them to reach some sort of consensus? And how will the rhetoric styles developed by the algorithms themselves reflect those of our contemporary political landscape?