muGen : Generative AI as Machinic Exploration of Cultural Archives

Abstract: In recent years, generative AI has quickly become a new creative and artistic tool that could challenge our understanding of the creative process and the role of the machine. Despite having exhibited visually promising results, images generated by AI tools present various challenges, most notably their tendency to display cultural, gender and racial biases. The objective of the project is to speculate on the concept and prototype of an alternative text-to-image generation system, designed to mitigate biases from linguistic and cultural differences, and facilitate diversity in machine creativity. muGen, the final design, is a fictional system that allows the user to generate images using data in different languages, while adding user controls such as time period to better associate user’s idea with the system.