Blog Home

A! x Design Open call poster - We now invite Artists from EU and affiliated countries to join the Open Call
Open Call for Artists | Apply by 25th September
We and AI have teamed up with AIxDesign to commission three artists to encourage a better understanding of AI. Thanks Read more
A person with their hands on a laptop keyboard is looking at something happening over their screen with a worried expression. They are white, have shoulder length dark hair and wear a green t-shirt. The overall image is illustrated in a warm, sketchy, cartoon style. Floating in front of the person are three small green illustrations representing different industries, which is what they are looking at. On the left is a hospital building, in the middle is a bus, and on the right is a siren with small lines coming off it to indicate that it is flashing or making noise. Between the person and the images representing industries is a small character representing artificial intelligence made of lines and circles in green and red (like nodes and edges on a graph) who is standing with its ‘arms’ and ‘legs’ stretched out, and two antenna sticking up. A similar patten of nodes and edges is on the laptop screen in front of the person, as though the character has jumped out of their screen. The overall image makes it look as though the person is worried the AI character might approach and interfere with one of the industry icons.
Illustrating Data Hazards
We are delighted to start releasing some useful new images donated by the Data Hazards project into our free image Read more
Some screenshots of the new Better Images of AI Guide fr Users and Creators
Launch of a Guide for Users and Creators of Images of AI
On 24 January, the Better Images of AI project launched a Guide for Users and Creators of images of AI Read more
Selection of Post-It notes representing childrens views of AI
What do children think AI looks like?
The BBC Research and Development team asked hundreds of children this question as part of their Get Curious event at Read more
LCFI Research Project l FINAL WORKSHOPS ANNOUNCED! Calling all journalists, AI practitioners, communicators and creatives! (Event poster in Better Images of AI blue and purple colours, with logos)
Three new Better Images of AI research workshops announced
Three new workshops have been announced in September and October by the Better Images of AI project team. We will Read more
Silicon block on a plain black background
Illustrating the Materiality of AI
The physical materials involved in artificially intelligent systems are all-too-frequently absent from discussions of AI itself. By picturing the physicality Read more
Dreaming Beyond AI
Dreaming Beyond AI is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative web-based project bringing together artists, researchers, activists, and policymakers to create new Read more
Woman to the left, jumbled up letters entering her ear
Images Matter!
You often hear the phrase “words matter”: words help us to make sense of the world around us. Yet, in Read more
Two digitally illustrated green playing cards on a white background, with the letters A and I in capitals and lowercase calligraphy over modified photographs of human mouths in profile.
Handmade, Remade, Unmade A.I.
Alina’s image, Handmade A.I. was one of the first additions to the Better Images of AI repository. This blog explores Read more
AI generated image of a coffee cup, with 'AI' written on the top
AIHub: An Intro to Better Images of AI
The AIHub coffee corner captures the musings of AI experts over a short conversation. As a Founding Supporter of Better Read more
A window of three images. On the right is a photo of a big tree in a green field in a field of grass and a bright blue sky. The two on the left are simplifications created based on a decision tree algorithm. The work illustrates a popular type of machine learning model: the decision tree. Decision trees work by splitting the population into ever smaller segments. I try to give people an intuitive understanding of the algorithm. I also want to show that models are simplifications of reality, but can still be useful, or in this case visually pleasing. To create this I trained a model to predict pixel colour values, based on an original photograph of a tree.
Branching Out: Understanding an Algorithm at a Glance
Rens Dimmendaal, Principal Data Scientist at GoDataDriven, discusses with Better Images of AI the need to cut through the unnecessary Read more
A photographic rendering of a simulated middle-aged white woman against a black background, seen through a refractive glass grid and overlaid with a distorted diagram of a neural network.
AI, Narratives, Sound and Equality
Based on an interview with Spencer Collins, expert Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisor, exploring his perspective on the importance of Read more
An illustration of three „pixelated“ cupboards next to each other with open drawers, the right one is black
Buzzword Buzzkill: Excitement & Overstatement in Tech Communications
A piece always needs an image. With the fast pace environment of the newsroom, limited budget and a general lack Read more
Humans (back) in the Loop
Pictures of Artificial Intelligence often remove the human side of the technology completely, removing all traces of human agency. Better Read more
Two pencil drawn 1960s style towy robots being scribbled out by a pencil on a pale blue background
Avoiding toy robots: Redrawing visual shorthand for technical audiences
Visually describing AI technologies is not just about reaching out to the general public, it also means getting things marketing Read more
An abstract illustration with fluid words spelling Data, Oil, Fluid and Leak
Why Metaphors matter: How we’re misinforming our children about data
Data as a fluid, data streams, data flows, data leaks. Data as a resource, data is the new oil, mining Read more
An abstract image containing stylized black cubes and a half-transparent veil infront of a night street scene
From Black Box to Algorithmic Veil: Why the image of the black box is harmful to the regulation of AI
The black box narrative was originally intended as a ‘wake-up call’ to direct our attention towards certain risks of algorithmic Read more
A human hand touching a glossy round surface with cloudy blue texture that resembles a globe
How do blind people imagine AI? An interview with programmer Florian Beijers
Note: We acknowledge that there is no one way of being blind and no one way of imagining AI as Read more
A handmade sketch of four figures throwing shadows that look like neural networks
AI images - an ecosystem problem with a collaborative solution
Images of AI have been a problem rattling around my mind for many years. As a degree student studying AI, Read more
Press release: Better Images of AI launches a free stock image library of more realistic images of artificial intelligence
Non-profit collaboration starts to make and distribute more accurate and inclusive visual representations of AIFollows research showing that current popular Read more
A photographic rendering of a young black man standing in front of a cloudy blue sky, seen through a refractive glass grid and overlaid with a diagram of a neural network
Better Images of AI’s first Artist: Alan Warburton
Alan Warburton is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the impact of software on contemporary visual culture. His hybrid practice feeds insight Read more
Nel blu dipinto di blu; or the “anaesthetics” of stock images of AI
What if a major issue with AI stock images is the abundant use of the color blue in the background? Read more
A robot hand and a human hand reaching out with their fingertips towards each other
The AI Creation Meme
Few images are as recognisable or as frequently memed as Michelangelo’s Creazione di Adamo (Creation of Adam), a moment from Read more
An artistically distorted image of colorful sound waves containing no robots or other clichee representation of AI
AI WHAT’S THAT SOUND? Stories and Sonic Framing of AI
In what ways does a failure to consider the sonic framing of AI influence or undermine attempts to broaden public Read more
A grid of photos of a tree in different seasons, overlayed by a grid of white rectangles rotating in different angles
What does AI look like?
We have noticed that news stories or press releases about AI are often illustrated with stock photos of shiny gendered Read more
A typical bad stockphoto of AI showing a robotic hand typing on a computer keyboard
Do robots dream of unnecessary appliances?
The following is an excerpt from the full article on aimyths.org by Daniel Leufer: https://www.aimyths.org/ai-equals-shiny-humanoid-robots So what makes a robot Read more
A screenshot of a video conference showing the participants of the panel discussion
Panel discussion with head of photography of Zeit-Online
The German conference “KI und Wir” organized a panel discussion about the topic of visual representation of AI in the Read more