An unprecedented international exhibition that explores the relationship between people and artificial intelligence. A journey that takes us through the history of Artificial Intelligence and its development, from its ancient roots in cultures such as Japanese Shintoism and Judaism, through the first computer experiments, to the present day, to show how an ancient dream of creating intelligence has become a reality.

An immersive and interactive experience to learn about the creative and scientific advances of artificial intelligence, created by the Barbican Centre in London and co-produced by Forum Groningen.

You will see that the beginnings of artificial intelligence are much older than commonly believed, dating back to religious traditions such as Japanese Shinto and Jewish culture. Understanding how this historical desire to give life to inert beings has allowed man to explore his place in the world helps to understand his perception of and relationship with technology...

This section shows how artificial intelligence is shaped by the computer and mathematical advances of the 19th and 20th centuries, and how these have continued to expand at great speed in the 21st century, giving the technology spectacular capabilities such as artificial neural networks. 

You will have the opportunity to see and interact with research projects and cutting-edge systems such as the Enigma machine and Alan Turing's Bombe machine, fundamental in the course of World War II, as well as the most recent developments of companies such as DENSO corporation, which is exhibiting its robotic arm, and Google's Art and Culture department, which is presenting an interactive work that brings artificial intelligence closer to 19th century British poetry, among many other works...

In this section we offer you an analysis of the infinite number of applications of artificial intelligence, as well as its incorporation into fields such as healthcare, journalism or commerce, which opens up an often exciting and sometimes disturbing future.

This section includes developments such as a driving simulator with facial analysis or a system capable of converting the objects it perceives into paintings in real time.

It also raises the ethical and moral questions that currently surround this technology and how they affect everyday life: will our prejudices be amplified by the technologies we create, who will be responsible for mistakes, how will AI affect privacy, freedom and truth?

The research area known as A-Life is the focus of this section to show how artificial intelligence merges with other disciplines to change our idea of what we call "natural".

While AI emulates the behaviour of the brain, the A-Life research area works with a much broader set of natural processes, including human and animal biology and environmental science.

This gives us the possibility of improving our bodies, eradicating diseases, producing new food groups and even prolonging life. It is possible to imagine as many new futures for our species as the creation of new beings.

Here you can see, for example, how millions of copies of a music album can be encoded into DNA and stored inside spray cans, or even smell the flowers of a tree that became extinct over 100 years ago.