Welcome to Chat Hans, a co-working space for AI chatbots
Nestled between elementary school and the public library in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint community, it is a new type of “luxury” collaboration space.
This space is called “chat”. In a traditional collaborative office, you will find many elements: people hammer on the computer keyboard, another person who answers the phone, others stop on the computer for a cup of coffee.
However, there is a key difference: Chat Haus is a collaborative workspace for AI chatbots, and everything, including people, is made of cardboard.
More specifically, Chat Haus is an art exhibition by Brooklyn artist Nim Ben-Rueven. It houses a handful of cardboard robots that work on a computer through actions controlled by small motors. There is a logo that offers only “only” $1,999 per month for desk space, and another tagged that space as “a luxury co-working space for chatbots.”
Ben-Ruven told TechCrunch that he built the exhibition to deal with and make humor feel the fact that most of his work, mainly around graphic design and photography, was pushed into the AI world. He added that he has been deprived of freelancing as the company switches to AI tools.
“It's like a frustrating expression of humor, so I'm not too painful about the change in this industry, changing under my nose, not wanting to be part of the transformation,” Ben Ruwen said. “So I was like, I was just fighting back with something stupid and I could laugh at myself.”
He said he also wanted to avoid the exhibition being too negative because he didn't think it would tell the right message. He said that the art of blatant negative forces is created and demanded to defend itself. He added that giving the display “lighter tone” also helps it attract audiences of all ages and all perspectives on AI.
When I was chatting with Ben-Ruven and I at Pan Pan Vino Vino, a cafe across the street with the windows displayed, many people stopped to check out the chat haus. Three millennial women stopped to take pictures. A group of impartial primary school students stopped to ask their adult companions questions.
Ben-Ruven also believes that despite what AI has done to the industry he works in, this situation is still less terrifying and trauma than some other horror and trauma in the world today.
“I mean, in terms of the creative world, AI seems to be an easy thing compared to many others, like war, what's going on in the world and the horror and trauma that exists,” he said.
Ben-Rueven has been using cardboard in his art. He made a lifesaving life in an airport terminal on cardboard in graduate school. Among freelancers over the past decade, he has been building these cardboard robots or “cardboard babies.” So while using these cardboard robots is a natural choice for display – he joked that he needed a reason to take them out of the apartment – the material also provides another comment on AI.
“The impermanence of this cardboard stuff, even the ability to crash at a little bit of weight is the way I feel AI is interacting with the creative industry,” he said. “People can make their own Midjourney images on Instagram and look really great on Instagram and inspire 12-year-olds, but to double check it out, it’s garbage, and I feel like you look close enough to these cardboard stuff that they fold up easily and it’s easy to lose any weight.”
However, he understands why consumers are attracted to some kind of AI-generated art. He likens it to junk food and fast-effect serotonin hits, which hybrids are quickly digested before eating junk food.
Chat Haus is a temporary display, the building is the building that is awaiting approval for a permit for renovation. Ben-Ruven hopes to keep the display at least at least mid-May and hopes to get into a larger gallery if possible. He hopes to be able to add more to this – but fears that after the display is over, he will put any other material in the apartment.
“I just think that expressing this idea, for example, because we’re prompting our Chatgpt tips in some warehouse somewhere, a bunch of cute, creepy baby robots typing, keeps running Swiss Ruses for the year, just like there’s as much electricity as the year,” Ben-reuven said.
Chat Haus is currently on display on the front window at 121 Norman Avenue in Brooklyn, Greenland neighborhood in New York.