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A Monthly Culture Matrix For the Cosmopolitan Traveler

Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI


de Young Museum / San Francisco / Art

“We Homo sapiens are living through the beginning of a great upheaval,” the novelist Ian McEwan recently wrote. “During the decades ahead, we will have to consider very carefully what it means to be human.” McEwan isn’t the only tech-industry outsider reacting to the potential trappings—or trap—of our A.I. future. Anna Wiener explored the human side of Silicon Valley in her memoir, Uncanny Valley, published in January. Her title is actually a term first used by a Japanese engineer, in 1970, to describe the discomfort we feel when machines closely resemble people. Now, this high-tech museum show turns the subject over to artists, from Simon Denny to Martine Syms. —J.V.

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de Young Museum 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA
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