An interactive installation exploring how poetic language is affected when fed through a series of AI and other machine translation tools. Users feed a piece of poetry into a custom-built application and send it through a series of languages and tools to see how the words and meaning change. The installation provokes discussion around human skill/creativity in the age of AI, while also revealing wider dangers these tools can have when used by/for immigration or law enforcement, for translating medical records, or the processing of sensitive documents. A collaboration between Pip Thornton and Evan Morgan (Design Informatics), Machine Whispers was an invited exhibit at the Push The Boat Out Poetry Festival at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in November 2024, and was also shown as part of a wider exhibition at the Edinburgh Science Festival in March 2025.
AI and the (Un)translatability of Poetry
Machine Whispers was part of the discussion at a panel event at the 2024 Push The Boat Out poetry festival. AI and the (Un)translatability of Poetry featured Pip Thornton, Evan Morgan, and literary translator and poet Rachel Rankin.
Machine Whispers – Science Festival 2025
A playful interactive exhibition hosted by the Scottish Poetry Library as part of the 2025 Edinburgh Science Festival. The exhibition showcases some of the outputs of Pip Thornton’s BRAID funded Writing the Wrongs of AI fellowship project, including the Human Verses Machine LEX-9000 writing machine. The exhibition is part of the Edinburgh Science Festival program and will be hosted at the Scottish Poetry Library 7th-10th and 14th-17th April 2025, 0830-1530.
MACHINE WHISPERS consists of 3 artworks:
1. MACHINE WHISPERS (Pip Thornton x Evan Morgan) is currently being developed for the 2024 Push The Boat Out (PTBO) poetry festival by myself and Evan Morgan from Design Informatics at UoE. This interactive installation explores how poetic language is affected when fed through a series of AI and other machine translation tools. Users can feed a piece of poetry into a custom-built application and send it through a series of languages and tools to see how the words and meaning change. The work is an engaging and ‘fun’ way to discuss very current issues around human skill/creativity and the fate of the translating industry in the age of AI, while also sounding a more serious alarm about the real world dangers these translation tools can have, in particular when used by/for immigration or law enforcement, for the translation of medical records, and also issues around breaches of confidentiality in translating sensitive or secret documents.
2. The LEX-9000 (Ray Interactive x Pip Thornton) is a fully functional ‘automatic writing machine’ in the form of a 7 ft robot. The machine was built as a spoof new product which ‘launched’ at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this August as part of the Writing the Wrongs of AI project. Designed and built by WWAI partners/participants Ray Interactive, LEX is a parody critique of the promises and perils of Generative AI models such as ChatGPT, and is ‘marketed’ as your friendly writing buddy, able to help you with writers block, plotlines, tone etc, but then as the user carries on typing their story or poem LEX becomes more controlling and the underlying incentives and logics of these models become more evident. More details here: https://rayinteractive.org/lex9000
3. The Word Exchange (Pip Thornton) is the latest iteration of Pip Thornton’s existing {poem}.py critique of the economic, political and cultural impact of Google’s commodification of language. Revealing how the economic logics of big tech platforms extract value from human language, this installation monetises, and then prints out receipts for poems submitted by visitors in person or online. A static installation will be complimented by a live interactive version as part of the launch event.
Pip Thornton 