GOD MODE (ep. 1) is an interactive audiovisual performance set in a real-time 3D simulation running on a video game engine. The simulation is a replica of state of the art simulations increasingly used to train deep-learning computer vision systems for real world tasks.

In GOD MODE (ep. 1), an AI destined for deployment in a cashierless store is training to recognise items on shelves as it delivers a monologue written by language model GPT-3. Throughout the performance, the AI grows frustrated with the difficulty of its training until it finds a bug to exploit in order to cheat its way out of the simulation.

Featuring live music by artist HERO IMAGE, and facial motion capture and voice modulation to animate the AI on screen, the performance presents viewers with one possible kind of intelligence that may emerge from the complex process of simulating the real world, and the perspective it may inherit. Aspects of the training method used in the simulation are turned into game mechanics that let the audience modify the environment via phone in real time, welcoming interaction as a means to explore the characteristics and test the limitations of this process.

GOD MODE (ep. 1) was performed at HQI, London in March 2022 and at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry in June 2022. It is the first episode of a series under active development with support from Alan Turing Institute and Serpentine Galleries' Creative AI lab.