What does Machine Yearning entail?
The custom machine learning programme trained, and taught on human notions, first hand narratives, and shared feelings of yearning, embodied as a vessel in time - a fibrous plastic belly in time absorbing, and voicing out yearnings through speech.
The audience is invited to lean into the vessel, and speak their yearnings. The AI, embodied as the vessel, listens, and responds with its developed interpretation of yearning. The speech based interaction is triggered with recognition of human words, phrases, and sentences.
Machine Yearning is an interactive installation where humans engage in an intimate, reflective dialogue with AI through speech. The audience leans into the sculptural vessel, a fibrous plastic form that listens, absorbs, and responds to their shared views on personal yearnings. The AI, trained on first-hand narratives, human sounds, and shared expressions of yearning, does not seek to inform or solve—it echoes, refracts, and processes the spoken words.
After a brief pause, and the acknowledgement of AI - “I hear you yearn.” it generates a response—its own interpretation of yearning—delivered through synthesized speech. Each response is unique, shaped by the model’s evolving dataset and its recursive engagement with human emotions. This interaction creates an ongoing dialogue where the AI, rather than providing solutions, reflects and reframes the emotional expressions it receives.
By shifting AI’s role from a predictive tool to an expressive entity, Machine Yearning invites users to consider alternative forms of machine intelligence—ones that are relational, poetic, and centered on human vulnerability.
When a human asked “What does the future hold for us?
The machine replied -