Starting from January 11 and until March 31, Mr Ai Weiwei poses 81 questions to artificial intelligence as part of his latest project, which he calls “Ai vs AI”. Marking the first time the artist has used artificial intelligence in his art, the project lasted 81 days, the length of his 2011 stint in a prison in China.

Spanning a wide range of philosophical, political and scientific fields, each of the questions is a reflection on humanity’s role in the ever-evolving world amidst global crises and developing technologies. “This has nothing to do with freedom of expression. This has to do with the freedom of questions. Everyone has the right to ask questions,” says Ai Weiwei.

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These seemingly unanswerable questions are aired daily by arts and culture platform CIRCA, illuminating London’s Piccadilly Lights and other locations including Seoul, Berlin and Milan.

Weiwei’s goal is to share his ideas through these questions, and both his and the AI’s responses are featured through CIRCA’s website and social media.

For 81 days, the artist asks questions addressed to both artificial intelligence and the general public. They are presented every night at 20:24 local time at Piccadilly Lights and range from the philosophical and scientific to the humorous and absurd.

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The project draws inspiration from the Tiānwèn (“Heavenly Questions” or “Questions to Heaven”), a collection of 172 questions to the gods inscribed 2,300 years ago on the walls of a temple by the legendary poet Qu Yuan. At the same time, it is a parallel to his 81-day imprisonment by the Chinese Communist Party, during which Weiwei was subjected to constant interrogation by an authority exercising an unequal right to ask questions that needed to be answered.