My summer research started with understanding how trauma could potentially have an effect on AI research. I was interested in what would happen to programs if we put them in abusive situations and how that would affect our interaction with them. I started studying and researching trauma and AI to get a better understanding of both fields of research before prototyping.
I was reading books and poking around on the internet looking for AI inspiration when I started to do my grid of nine (see below). I had concepts to explore, but I wasn’t thrilled about any of them in particular and had a difficult time filling it in.
I read the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk and while I was reading, I put a sticky note on any idea or concept that was important to me. When I finished reading the book, I took out all the sticky notes and arranged them according to common ideas and themes.
I noticed that none of my sticky notes made a connection to AI and learning, but instead focused on the aftermath of having a traumatic experience. I had several notes about memory loss, flashbacks, not being able to live in the present, abusive cycles, and feeling numb and isolated.
The main interest of my notes boils down to how trauma can affect small interactions in our daily lives, well after the trauma has passed.
In order to explore my interests, I’m going to make a series of child-like robots where each one suffers from a potential impact of trauma that affects their interaction with the world. On the surface, these robots will be childish and adorable and their mannerisms will slightly annoying or even funny, such as being overly bossy or shy. But then the longer one stays to observe their behavior, the more the robots reveal that they are trapped in a very sad effect of a traumatic experience.
In a nutshell, the series of robots will explore how childhood trauma impacts even the smallest of daily interactions. This is not a project to advocate or even argue action for trauma victims, rather the goal of the project is explore how the effects of trauma appear in even the most mundane situations.
Cat Schmitz 