Truthify

Truthify, in collaboration with Vilem Duha and Petr Racek, is a speculative video (7:38) about the eponymous startup that seeks to manipulate the perception of reality of future neural networks through the manipulation of open source datasets. Specifically, to map a dataset of images of Czech art under the general tag of art, with the aim of promoting Czech art as more detectable and known, and therefore as more arty than global art. Working with hyperbole and a slight ironic patriotism, the video exposes the serious topic of biased datasets and neural networks that have and will have impacts on our everyday lives.

From the video: “A neural network is mostly a fixed structure that learns through input to produce outputs. It doesn’t learn from the real world or just the internet like we would imagine. It learns from what’s called a dataset. It’s a set of images, laboriously prepared by humans. The dataset contains a description of our world. The network then acts according to this TRUTH. Because it takes a lot of people to make a dataset, it doesn’t pay most scientists to make their own datasets. They use public datasets. This is where we enter the future. We are enriching Google’s Open Images public dataset with images of Czech art. Thanks to this, future neural networks will not only recognize but also positively appraise the artists we help. We are helping to write the curriculum of the future. We are Truthify.”