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From Norbert Wiener to Gershom Scholem, many thinkers and technicians saw in computer science a modern concretization of the golem. This « Golem to AI » filiation seems manifest through all of these parallels. Moreover when the fact that AI is still a myth for now is pointed out. Indeed, as for today, AI seems incredibly far from a true autonomy attributed to a fundamentally independent and self-learning machine. There is always human work behind artificial intelligence, and this work often remains hidden or unaware. On dedicated platforms, precarious and isolated «click workers» are feeding the algorithms, annotating videos, classifying images, correcting sentences...

EMET seeks to confront the imaginary fantasy of an autonomous AI with its hidden reality. It consists of an installation mixing visual research and an automaton. The golems presented inside the screens are the result of an experimental process. As the traditional golem, our creatures are first modeled in clay. They have a rough humanoid shape that we digitize using photogrammetry. These sculptures are then reworked on a 3D software, then animated using a motion capture. The keyboard can be seen as a display of letters, which are the source of the golem’s life. It’s also one of the iconic objects of the click workers. In EMET, its keys seem to activate automatically, as if its users were not there but in a hidden place, out of sight. We try to materialize, in a paradoxical way, both the presence and the absence of the data producers. The mechanical and repetitive aspect of the tasks is exacerbated not only by this mechanical assembly, but also by the disturbing sound it produces.