Future Ideations Camp Vol.5 Can AI Become Life?

Day 2 opened with “The Court of Life,” a workshop led by designer-artist duo Playfool (Maruyama Saki and Dan Coppen). Participants, divided into 5 groups, took turns acting as defense attorneys, prosecutors, and jury members in a trial where the three judges—Playfool and Doi Itsuki—posed a fundamental question: is the defendant “alive”?
The “defendants” included a stone, a Roomba, Shibuya, and a Mickey Mouse plush toy. The trial sparked intense debates on defining life, touching on concepts such as organic vs inorganic entities, autonomy, consciousness, and dignity. Participants examined whether these definitions could or should be applied to each of the defendants.

Following this, Masumori Atsushi, the Camp’s co-director, delivered a lecture on key concepts in ALife and AI research including autopoiesis, sensorimotor coupling, subsumption architecture. This set the stage for the hands-on workshop where participants experimented with autonomous robot control using LLMs (large language models). A highlight was the android Alter 3 which appeared on stage, delivered a lecture, and also answered questions from the participants via a QR code.

The day concluded with a Meetup titled “Hello from the Campers! Can or Should AI Become Life?” This featured five Pecha Kucha-style presentations by Martin O’Leary (Watershed) and artist Rachel Smith from Bristol, UK and three volunteers from the participants. The event wrapped up with a lively discussion between the panel, two directors, and the floor covering (anti) human-centrism and AI, and portrayal of seemingly (un)friendly AI robots (Doraemon and Atom Boy) in Japanese popular culture.

Day 3 focused methodologies and case studies that explored AI and ALife technologies.

This began with “Rapid Prototyping,” a workshop led by Martin O’Learly and artist Rachel Smith who introduced the participant with their methodology of “making things quickly and badly,” a creative process consisting of 4 stages: drawing down an idea, breaking it down, testing, and repeating it. Participants randomly picked cards containing nouns, verbs, and reasons generating a silly prompt such as “a toilet, punches, because of words.” Using materials found within CCBT, they rapidly built their prototypes emphasizing quick thinking and resourcefulness.

Then, programmer and algorithmic designer Horikawa Junichiro delivered his hands-on workshop “Creating Autonomous Agents.” Participants used the game engine Unity to explore the Boid Model, a simulation model that mimics the collective behaviour of flocking animals. They learned about the mechanisms of flocking “agents” using these practical tools.

Nagami Keisuke, designer of HATRA, presented “AI and Fashion / Fashion for AI,” the final lecture of the Camp. He introduced innovative approaches in fashion design using generative AI, emphasizing that, for him, generative AI is not only a tool used to generate imagery but instead is a way for him to “travel through latent space.”
Opening up the discussion to the floor, Nagami elaborated on his ideas that clothing serves to “amplify fluctuation” and encouraged participants to question what clothing would mean for AI, a form of intelligence that resides in a higher-dimensional space.

The final task of day 3 was to divide the participants into groups of their interests in preparation for their group work from the following day. The themes that arose were: Symbiotic (Society), Alternative Forms of Intelligence, Fashion, AI’s Perspective on Life and Creativity, and Life as Seen by Humans.