be mAI friend

Filmbild "CITY PHOTOGRAMME" aus dem experimentellen Dokumentar-Kurzfilm „The Oasis I Deserve“ von Inès Sieulle – Filmbild "CITY PHOTOGRAMME" aus dem experimentellen Dokumentar-Kurzfilm „The Oasis I Deserve“ von Inès Sieulle

be mAI friend „AFFEKTATOR 3000“

Have you ever thought about becoming friends with an AI? At the Humboldt Forum, that’s possible.

In an increasingly digitalized world, artificial intelligences that act as friends, family members, or pets are gaining emotional and social relevance.

For the festival “Chosen or Given?”, a chatbot was developed that explores the themes of human-machine interaction, AI friends, and digital relationships.

Meet the AFFEKTATOR 3000, which provides first aid for acute lack of connection—or at least tries to. What happens when you engage in conversation with it?

The project invites visitors to directly experience and reflect on the relationship between humans and AI in an interactive space. The installation raises questions about closeness, loneliness, empathy, and the role of technology in interpersonal relationships. It opens up a space for critical engagement with the opportunities and risks of digital companions and invites you to question your own relationship with AI.

And if it doesn’t work out, you can just delete your new “friend” at the end—right?

The Oasis I deserve

The exhibition also features the work “The Oasis I Deserve” by Inès Sieulle, which explores the relationships between people and Replika, one of the most widely used AI companion platforms—an AI tool designed not as an assistant system, but as a friend, partner, or confidant. To create this, Sieulle used real recordings of conversations between users of the platform and their digital companions.

In her film, she shows that Replika functions as a mirror of its over 30 million users, as every interaction shapes the AI and influences its behavior. The film contrasts different types of these relationships—ranging from affectionate to aggressive—and raises the question of whether genuine connection between humans and AI is possible, or whether we are merely projecting our own feelings onto it. Ultimately, the central question remains: Where does the line lie between a genuine relationship and mere projection, as humans increasingly develop emotional bonds with AI systems?

Sieulle´s work is accompanied by surreal, AI-generated images intended to visually convey how an AI “thinks.” With the help of the VQGAN neural network, new, dissolving forms constantly emerge—somewhere between abstraction and recognizability—whose glitchy aesthetic symbolizes the fragmented identity of an AI.

- free admission – Humboldt Forum ticket required

Please purchase your ticket in advance online or at the box office in the foyer.

- 14 years and older

- Ground Floor

- Belongs to: Given or Chosen?

Next date:

• Date Friday, 01/May/2026 10:30 (1 more date)
• Venue Humboldt Forum
• Address Schloßplatz, 10178 Berlin-Mitte