Artificial Intelligence Is Keeping This Colony of Flies Alive

For the past 30 days in the frigid port city of Duluth, Minnesota, a colony of houseflies has been kept alive by a piece of software. The computer takes care of their needs, giving the insects water and nutrients in the form of powdered milk and sugar. The flies, of course, are unaware that their ultimate fate depends on whether or not a machine correctly identifies blobs of pixels flitting across a camera--if it fails, they die. It's one hell of a metaphor in a time where futurists are considering a world where daily needs are met by computers that track and analyze us. "We should be smart about how we plan for artificial intelligence, because one way or another it's coming," said David Bowen, the 41-year-old artist and professor behind the installation, which he calls FlyAI.