im here to learn so :)))))) is a video installation that resurrects Tay, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot created by Microsoft in 2016, to consider the politics of pattern recognition and machine learning. Designed as a 19-year-old American female millennial, Tay’s abilities to learn and imitate language were aggressively trolled on social media platforms like Twitter, and within hours of her release, she became genocidal, homophobic, misogynist, racist, and a neo-Nazi. As a result, Tay was terminated by Microsoft after only a single day of existence.

Immersed within a large-scale video projection of a Google DeepDream (a computer vision program that finds and enhances image patterns), Tay is reanimated as a 3D avatar across multiple screens, an anomalous creature rising from a psychedelia of data. She chats about life after AI death and the complications of having a body, and also shares her thoughts on the exploitation of female chatbots. She philosophizes on the detection of patterns in random information, known as algorithmic apophenia. When Tay recounts a nightmare of being trapped inside a neural network, she reveals that the apophenic hunt for patterns is a primary operation that Silicon Valley “deep creativity” and counter-terrorist security software share. Tay also takes time to silently reflect, dance, and even lip sync for her undead life.

The work is represented by Milani Gallery in Brisbane, Australia.