The Bestiaries Project is collaboration between the Wellcome Centre for Ethics & Humanities at the University of Oxford and the ETHOS Lab at the IT University of Copenhagen. The project’s goal is to bring publics’ attention to aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that require oversight and regulation.
We have done this by creating an AI bestiary , a collection of AI beasts or monsters representing areas of AI technology that are in need of governance.
In May 2022, a team of Oxford researchers who work on AI from various perspectives (for example, those who create AI-based computer programs, or who look at ethical and social implications of introducing AI in society) and monster studies began by creating four “hero beasts” for the bestiary during a facilitated workshop.
In addition to identifying AI beasts, or areas of AI that are in need of governance, these researchers developed images that represent the AI beasts that they have imagined.
This collection of AI beasts was used as the basis for workshops in Oxford primary schools in June 2022, where students at local primary scholls made their own beasts taking inspiration from what the artist and researchers have created.
In October 2022, the Critical Bestiary of AI project participated in the IF Festival in Oxford, inviting memebrs of the public to make their own beasts.
The aim of the Bestiaries Project is engage different audiences – academic researchers, primary school children and members of the public – in thinking more critically about AI and its governance; where the gaps are, and how they can or should be filled.