The installation entitled “Am I a Strange Loop?” will be on display at the 2025 Architecture Biennale in Venice. It raises the question of whether artificial intelligence can develop a form of self-awareness. The installation features the humanoid robot Alter3, which has mimic, gestural, and verbal abilities. It uses GPT-4 or GPT-5. Visitors can communicate with it in different languages via a microphone. The installation draws on ideas from physicist, computer scientist, and cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, who assumed that consciousness arises when a system reflects on itself. Alter3 is an impressive robot with a silicone face and silicone hands, but otherwise has a machine-like presence. GPT-4, GPT-5, or other language models cannot create either world consciousness or self-awareness.
BY OLIVER BENDEL
