LEARNED FRIENDS: PIASECKI VS. WADE

Nina Davies

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Introduction

Niamh Schmidtke  0:11  

Hello, you're listening to Future Artefacts FM radio show hosted by Niamh Schmidtke. And Nina Davies.

 

Nina Davies  0:19  

Earlier this year, several radio frequencies were discovered airing a collection of broadcasts. At first they sounded like regular news stories and interviews. They felt familiar, but also not quite belonging to our present. Slowly, the listeners came to believe that what they were listening to, did indeed belong to their world, just not their time. They were looking into the future through the mundane edges of radio recordings and public service announcements. While this material is still being meticulously studied by researchers in various universities and museums, your hosts have managed to gain access to this collection to air a selection of these broadcasts for you, our listeners.

 

Niamh Schmidtke  1:00  

For full disclosure, we will not be sharing this collection with you, as this introduction is based on a fictional event. In this monthly broadcast, Future Artefacts FM, we will present speculative fiction pieces by artists and writers, followed by conversation with hosts Niamh Schmidtke and Nina Davies. The programme will focus on fictional works intended for broadcast, such as radio plays or fictional interviews, to carve out a better understanding of the now by exploring various interpretations of the future.

 

Artist Introduction

Niamh Schmidtke  1:39  

Hello, hello, hello.

 

Nina Davies  1:41  

Hello. Welcome back to Future Artefacts FM. As per usual, I'm your presenter, Nina,

 

Speaker 1  1:48  

and Niamh. But actually, you know, you're not presented today, you are the artist today.

 

Nina Davies  1:53  

That is true. I am the artist today, and I'm gonna, guess we'll just get straight into it. Today we've got another guest presenter, which is my very close friend and colleague, Jorge Poveda Yanez who I have had the pleasure of working with over the past, I almost want to say three years now. 

 

Jorge Poveda Yanez  2:16  

Yeah, probably even more

 

Nina Davies  2:18  

Yeah, it might be it might be more, which is crazy, because most of our friendship, or like working relationship has all been over zoom. And yet again, today, we're recording this on Zoom again. For the first for the first time, Future Artefacts is on Zoom. But, uh, yeah, again, Jorge and I are speaking together on Zoom, because we've got everyone in different countries. Niamh's in Berlin, Jorge's in California, which is not a country, but may may as well be its own country. And I am in London. 

 

Niamh Schmidtke  2:55  

But today's episode is going to be another kind of flipping, we're bringing Nina back as the artist for this episode. She's made a new work we're gonna be talking about this is like a work in progress. In a way, it's like part of development of some new, new commission's or new shows that are coming up, hopefully later in the summer, end of the year, so on kind of, not to reveal too much.

 

Nina Davies  3:19  

Yeah, I think it's gonna lead into a couple of a couple of projects, actually, in the same way that the last episode that I did for Future Artefacts, ended up doing the same thing where kind of the sound work turned into a video and then turned into a performance, sort of, I think this is gonna go down as well. So this is the first moment where the ideas are like entering the universe.

 

Niamh Schmidtke  3:43  

As all of your scripts. It's a really thoughtful and insightful work, I think. And it kind of ties together a lot of topics that, I feel like we had a conversation about this piece about two or three weeks ago. And I remember you, you talking to me about all of the ideas that you had, and thinking, wow, that's all one work, or it's not, it wasn't quite one work. But like even the fact that half that conversation kind of went into one piece is sort of incredible. So I think it's going to be really rich conversation, and especially today with Jorge as well. Because you both have very extensive backgrounds in, in dance and in choreography and kind of no surprise this work deals a bit with choreography, 

 

Nina Davies  4:26  

And law as well. 

 

Niamh Schmidtke  4:29  

Yeah, and law. How are you? How are you? Jorge, I realised we haven't said hello to you yet.

 

Nina Davies  4:34  

Yeah, we've been told we've been told recently that we don't ask people how they are, which is a big problem. So how are you?

 

Jorge Poveda Yanez  4:41  

I'm good in the moment that you told me okay, you will have to wake up 9am on a Sunday. I was like, okay to get to know another word by Nina. Okay, it's enough motivation. I'll do it.

 

Nina Davies  4:54  

That's so nice. I'm gonna actually kinda should have done this just at the beginning, but I'm just going to give like an official introduction to you Jorge, because we haven't done that yet. Jorge is a dancer, theatre maker, researcher and scholar working with new technologies, human rights, and the arts. He is currently the editor of Ghent University's documented journal, which focuses on theatre and performance studies. His training as a dancer/ anthropologist at UCI in France and performer UCE in Ecuador, social scientists UDLA. So all of these places, led him to enrol in a UCRS Ph. D programme and critical dance studies where he currently works as a teaching assistant and Jorge is actually working under, I don't know whether this is like too fan-girly to say, your supervisor at University of California Riverside is a author, Anthea Kraut, who wrote wrote I would call like a seminal text called Choreographing Copyright, which is about the race and gender politics about copyrighting choreography. But she says something about how it's race and gender politics but always cut, cross cut by class, isn't it? And now Jorge is studying under her. So that's like, really exciting. You're just you've just started your first year there?

 

Jorge Poveda Yanez  6:14  

Yes, my first year and you kind of like were, you were seeing this whole process with me as I applied and as I went through it, so I think you have the best perspective about the whole process in it.

 

Nina Davies  6:29  

Because this is only the introduction. I'm just really excited to have you here talking on the show. I feel really lucky to have two people, two people that know my work the best, all talking together. This is like a dream come true for me. So yeah, the piece is 17 minutes,

 

Niamh Schmidtke  6:47  

What's it called Nina?

 

Speaker 2  6:49  

It's called Learned Friends; Piasecki vs Wade, which is a really boring title. But I like it. And because there's a story behind it, which I'll tell you, after we've listened to the work. The work, I think can be listened to out loud, and headphones, whatever you want. As usual with my work, it's, there's no spoilers here, it's a fictional podcast conversation. So it's not a musical thing, I suggest it's actually best to put on while you're doing something else. So you can listen to it in the background, like you would just a normal podcast.

 

Niamh Schmidtke  7:25  

I would suggest maybe not doing loads and loads of things. Some of the material in it is a little bit dense, like in a good way. I mean, that's part of what we're going to unpack here today.

 

Nina Davies  7:35  

That's fair to say.

 

Niamh Schmidtke  7:36  

It's kind of the there's a lot of entanglement in it before we kind of settled into listening to it for anyone who's like a new listener or maybe doesn't know or it's been quite a few episodes since Nina has been on the show. I'm gonna read out a short bio. I mean, Nina is typically co presenter, that's kind of Nina and I co founded this this radio show, but I'll read out a little bit about, kind of what you've been up to in the last since since Bionic Step since episode six. We're now on episode 14. So it's been a bit of a journey. 

 

Nina Davies  8:10  

The update. 

 

Niamh Schmidtke  8:12  

Nina Davies is a Canadian British artist who considers the present moment through observing dance in popular culture, how it's disseminated, circulated, made and consumed. She recently graduated from Goldsmiths MFA fine art, where she was awarded the Almacantar Studio Award and the Goldsmiths Junior fellowship position. Her work has recently been exhibited and shown at Transmediale, Akademy der Kunst Berlin, Seventeen in London, Matts Gallery the Mattflicks film programme, Circa X Dazed class of 2022 Piccadilly Lights in London, Limes in Berlin, K-Pop Square in Seoul, Fed Square, Melbourne; Overmorrow House, Battle; and Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Hawick. In 2021 she co-founded Future Artefacts FM with artist Niamh Schmidtke and was awarded an Arts Council Project Grant to produce their 2022 programme. Also with thanks to the Elephant Trust, who helped us commission all of the artists to do their amazing works, big thanks to them. And this, this episode is our pro bono?

 

Nina Davies  9:22  

Yes, it's an unfunded episode which is hence why you're hearing from me a third time. Third time 

 

everyone  9:33  

laughter

 

Nina Davies  9:33  

I think we should probably get into the work so we can save as much time for chatting on the other end. So enjoy and we'll see you on the other side.

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Learned Friends; Piasecki vs Wade work

Riley:                           Welcome back everyone to Learned Friends, this is Riley here 

 

Devon:                        And Devon

 

Riley:                           Today we’re going to be looking at a pending case that has been re-opened after 24                                       years

 

Devon:                         Yes….. this is a super interesting one. Now, this is fairly normal isn’t it to have a case                                     pending this long right?

 

Riley:                           Oh yeah, I actually looked into this, and the longest a case was pending for was 180                                     years

 

Devon:                         What? [laughs]

 

Riley:                           No, I’m serious. It first happened in 1804 and was settled in… get this… 1984.

 

Devon:                         Wow

 

Riley:                           Uh huh

 

Devon:                         I’m speechless… So this is nothing

 

Riley:                           What… the?

 

Devon:                         Piasecki vs Ward

 

Riley:                           Right yeah. I think it’s actually uncommon for cases to be reopened. Like for for no                                         reason.

 

Devon:                         Sure, sure

 

Riley:                           So I did my research, as always…

 

Devon:                         As always….[tuts in a sarcastic way]

 

Riley:                           Wait? what? Do you still think I don’t do my research?

 

Devon:                         I didn’t say that…

 

Riley:                           This is ridiculous, so I just wanna say for the record, I always do…. the most….

 

Devon:                         [laughs]

 

Riley:                           ….extensive….. [laughs]…. research…. Apart from this one time….

 

Devon:                         Sorry I need to tell this story

 

Riley:                           So, like there was this one time, where we were messaging the night before we were                                     gonna record an episode. and I was telling Devon about the points I wanted to hit                                           when we spoke, and…

 

Devon:                         Basically Riley didn’t understand the assignment [laughs]

 

Riley:                           Yeah…. I mean it’s pretty embarrassing, but we were doing an episode about                                                 stationary security, which I’m sure some of you will remember. It was a computer                                           game where you would detect security anomalies. and it turned out the people                                               playing the game were…. or sorry… let me rephrase that….

 

                                    who thought they were playing the game… we actually doing free labour for security                                     services.

 

Devon:                         [laughs] And Riley…. thought that….. [laughs]

 

Riley:                           [sighs] … I had found a case from like ages ago about a stationery security incident,                                       where the stationery from an insurance company

 

Devon:                         Sorry we need to just clarify here that you’re talking about stationery as in… 

 

Riley:                           Pens, and pencils, yeah… they went missing on the day a new client had

                                    opened an account with this insurance company , so the policy was written in pencil.                                     Which resulted in the insurance company not being liable for anything on this                                                 account.

 

Devon:                         [laughs] Such a niche case. And like so old…. we’re talking before computers, before                                     laser printing, and when things were recorded only by hand using wet ink.

 

Riley:                           You know what, I was so proud of the research I had made. And Devon did not allow.

 

Devon:                         [laughs] because it was boring dude. The law is already boring enough. [laughs]

 

Riley:                           Fair enough, I’m still waiting for the chance for this to re-emerge. But …I don’t think                                         it’s gonna happen.

 

Devon:                         But let’s get into it….

 

Riley:                           ….Piasecki vs. Ward

 

Devon:                         I think maybe before we do, we should probably explain why it’s been re- opened                                           right?

 

Riley:                           Sure

 

Devon:                         Now this is actually how we initially came across the case, and some of you might                                         have heard about this more recent case against the app e-chemist for malpractice                                         where people were being diagnosed with depression based on the way they moved.

 

Riley:                           And am I right in saying that these people weren’t actually depressed?

 

Devon:                         Well, it’s hard to say, depression is common, so I think in most cases it was probably                                     correct. But as you know the original feature of e-chemist was to provide                                                         prescriptions for low-risk medications as a way to reduce appointments with over                                           subscribed medical practices.

 

Riley:                           That’s right…

 

Devon:                         And they eventually started providing diagnoses using various AI technologies.

 

Riley:                           Right

 

Devon:                         And some of these technologies were bought by the app in their early stages of                                             development…. Including Nervous Movement which is a generative model, and is                                           meant to detect whether you might be at risk of depression based on your body                                             movements.

 

Riley:                           So it like – it basically says “you have bad posture, you might be depressed”

 

Devon:                         I mean I think it’s more complex than that

 

Riley:                           Sure

 

Devon:                         But basically yeah. But there’s no definitive sad way of moving, right? Like it takes                                         you’re movement data to produce a prediction on whether you will be more sad later.

 

Riley:                           Okay…

 

Devon:                         And it can never tell you’re sad based on how you move because… mood effects                                           bodily movement differently across cultures… so it’s entirely cultural.

 

Riley:                           And is this what the current case is about? Misdiagnosing someone based on                                                 cultural differences?

 

Devon:                         Not exactly no, but this is the reason why it doesn’t really work right? And I guess to                                       sort of wrap up my bit here, is, in this on-going trial against e- chemist the                                                       prosecution have stated that they do not want the predictions to be shown to the jury                                     as evidence.

 

Riley:                           Which is where this gets super interesting…

 

Devon:                         Yeah, so they claim that if something is a prediction, then it isn’t necessarily real at                                         the moment it’s made, and if a prediction is faulty, then could this mislead a jury? So                                     I guess if the jury are not shown the prediction are they left with the facts that                                                 someone was prescribed medication that eventually gave them an anxiety disorder.                                       Plain and simple.

 

Riley:                           So you’re saying that the fact that the prediction was wrong, means it shouldn’t be                                         included as evidence? But isn’t the faulty prediction actually incriminating? Like it’s a                                     clear example of it giving the wrong advice.

 

Devon:                         Yeah you’re right, and I think this is how piasecki vs wade gets brought into the mix.

 

Riley:                           Totally and I can see that. So they’re – the prosecution – are like trying to set some                                         sort of symbolic precedent then…

 

Devon:                         Yeah they’re basically saying predictions aren’t real, and that we need to not consider                                     predictions within systems where finding truth is concerned like a court. But yeah                                           maybe we should move onto Piasecki vs wade now.

 

Riley:                           Cool, yeah. Well, this is the point where Piasecki gets reopened. So Piasecki the car                                     company, who I’m sure you’re all familiar with, was taken to court by the family of                                           Robbie Ward. And Robbie Ward was fatally hit by a Piasecki Matica which was, I                                           think one of their early self-driving-cars…. am I right?

 

Devon:                         My parents actually had one of those

 

Riley:                           Really?

 

Devon:                         Yeah there was some kind of government incentive to try and get more self driving                                         cars on the road, so the government was giving tax credits to people buying new                                           cars which made it the same price as other cars.

 

Riley:                           Right, and I guess that made the Matica relatively cheap then? Devon:    I mean, no                                       one our age would have been able to afford it…

 

Riley:                           Unless you used your law degree to actually become a lawyer, instead of host a law                                       themed podcast.

 

Devon:                         [laughs] I mean….. but cary on

 

Riley:                           Yeah so the case made against Piasecki by Robbie Wards family turned into this                                           really strange case where it seemed like the car malfunctioned… as many early                                             models did. But in this specific case there was some mysterious evidence

 

Devon:                         Dun dun dun! [sang]

 

Riley:                           You know those rear screen mirrors that are kind of a screen and a mirror? 

 

Devon:                         yeah…

 

Riley:                           Well it showed Robbie running into the middle of an industrial estate, causing the car,                                     which was backing out of the estate to swerved around him.

 

Devon:                         But that’s not what happened was it?

 

Riley:                           Nope… he hit him

 

Devon:                         damn

 

Riley:                           Basically where the car swerved to was actually where robbie was. He never actually                                     ran into the middle of the lot.

 

Devon:                         But isn’t the footage caught on the camera live?

 

Riley:                           You think that it would be but, no. It’s all predictive, because the whole system is                                             based on where it will predict people to be, of course there are live sensors, and then                                     also a live network between the cars

 

Devon:                         Hence the government incentive

 

Riley:                           Yeah. but no, there’s no live footage. But it gets even weirder. Devon:       Oh

 

Riley:                           The predictive footage found in the car, shows Robbie moving in a weird way. Like                                         he’s in a video game.

 

Devon:                         What? Like GTA style

 

Riley:                           Yeah exactly. He runs into the middle of the car park, and appears as if he kinda hits                                       an invisible wall and kind of runs on the spot for a split second and stands – well I                                           guess kinda bobs staring vacantly out into the distance.

 

Devon:                         But what do you mean by predictive footage? Sorry I’ve not heard this term before

 

Riley:                           Well this is the part I don’t fully understand, but basically the car used a similar                                               generative predictive model like e-chemist uses which can detect how people will                                          move up to 10 seconds into the future.

 

Devon:                         Oh I didn’t realise that how that’s how Nervous Movement worked… Riley:                                                      yeah…like… I think it’s slightly different – in that Nervous Movement - the company                                       – make a prediction of how the body will move if the person was sad, and then if it’s                                      a close match, it then it alerts the person who was moving.

 

Devon:                         I see so the prediction is the predicted movement - not the alert it sends out 

 

Riley:                           Precisely. And with the Piasecki Matica the predictive data was always made visible                                       to the passenger so that human intervention could happen when it was necessary –                                       and, as I’m sure you remember – the movements it predicted weren’t like organic                                           movements – like intricate, hands – individual movements. It was these sort of                                               video- game-like movements

 

Devon:                         Yeah of course I remember this – I mean I feel like we need to talk about forerunning                                     (or precursing)

 

Riley:                           Mmm yeah I’m gonna come to that in just a moment… but just let me finish this

 

Devon:                         cool

 

Riley:                           So the pedestrian movement prediction never needed to be that intricate as it mainly                                     needed to forecast general direction and speed of pedestrians.

                                    And then also – the most important thing is that these generative models are pre-                                          trained right?…

 

Devon:                         Right…

 

Riley:                            So, most of their training-data does comes from driving simulation games including                                        games like Grand Theft Auto. So the predictive footage it produced always showed                                        the pedestrians moving in this programmed way

 

Devon:                         See, I always thought this was just a fun feature of the model Riley:         No it’s                                             mainly due to the manufacturers deciding it was a waste of

                                    processing power. But what I’m trying to get at here, is that what these models are                                         trained on isn’t real life yeah?

 

Devon:                         Mmmm

 

Riley:                           – it’s a video game…and I think there’s something that this case opens up which is                                         really important - which is if these generative networks are based on fictional                                                 representations of reality, then do they in someway turn reality back into fiction?

 

Devon:                         Uhhh, okay. I’m not entirely with you there [laughs]

 

Riley:                           What like you don’t agree or?….

 

Devon:                         No, I think I’m not following…

 

Riley:                           I guess I just mean that in a sense these fictional, unreal worlds are in someway                                            materialising through the autonomous machines that now control large parts of our                                        daily lives

 

Devon:                         Okay…

 

Riley:                           And…. as I promised…. This is why I think precursing is such an interesting practice                                       and was so widely adopted. It’s basically, like, people recognising this shift and the                                         need to exist in this sort of fictional way

 

Devon:                         … I just wanna quickly explain what precursing is because it was trending around 25                                     years ago where it wasn’t uncommon to see a few people on the street every once in                                     a while waving at a bus stop or running on the spot facing a fence.

 

Riley:                           It was fun. Did you ever take part in this?

 

Devon:                         Yeah of course, didn’t you?

 

Riley:                           Yeah I remember doing it all the way to the bus stop to meet my friend in the morning

 

Devon:                         wow… such commitment

 

Riley:                           I know …I think that friend was probably my only friend [laughs]

 

Devon:                         [laughs] yeah .. I mean you didn’t need to tell me that, I’d figured that out years ago.                                      But yeah, we were just kids when this came out but it first started out as a prank, do                                       you remember?

 

Riley:                           Uhhhh…

 

Devon:                         Where when a group of people started “clumping” – I think that’s what they called it –                                     where they would quite literally clump together and start precursing, and then self                                         driving cars wouldn’t be able to tell which way people were gonna move individually                                       and the car would eventually stop. So people would do this as a sorta joke

 

Riley:                           Nice

 

Devon:                         And eventually people realised that self driving cars…. or I think cars on auto pilot as                                     well – responded better to pedestrians who were precursing

 

Riley:                           When you say better do you mean like responding faster?

 

Devon:                         Yeah it made is easier of the cars to detect pedestrians, and by becoming these sort                                     of characters they would match the training data which these machine run off of.

 

Riley:                           But we don’t really see this around much any more do we?

 

Devon:                         No…. but…. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but it’s become really popular in rural,                                         agricultural and mining areas. Where, basically there’s no urban pedestrian side-                                            walks.

 

Riley:                           No way!

 

Devon:                         Yeah I kid you not, it’s like even become a health and safety requirement for working                                     around industry vehicles like tractors and trucks which use old generative models                                           similar to Piasecki Matica.

 

Riley:                           Right, that’s insane.

 

Devon:                         yeah

 

Riley:                           Well I think we need to start wrapping up, but I obviously wanna bring this all back to                                     the re-opening of Piasecki vs Wade. Which has yet to be resolved

 

Devon:                         Yeah and I don’t think it will be for a while to be honest

 

Riley:                           You know what I was thinking the same thing actually, or at least it’s looking like it’s                                         headed that way. Because it’s opened up so many new questions concerning… even                                     how the… how the legal system functions

 

Devon:                         In what way?

 

Riley:                           Well, I guess the law has always be concerned with creating, or finding truth in past                                       events, and now, it seems that what we’re dealing with here is a… something                                                 completely different. Like it’s deciding truth within past situations that arise from                                             prediction.

 

Devon:                         And a prediction is never wholly truthful…

 

Riley:                           Yeah exactly, and also a predictive technology can’t be ever really be liable for                                                 something, which brings me to my last point.

 

Devon:                         Okay

 

Riley:                           I was speaking with a PhD student who regularly listens to our show, shout out to                                           Evan if you’re listening to this. And they told me about this crazy proposal within the                                       justice community to change the courtroom proceedings and protocols entirely

 

Devon:                         What?

 

Riley:                           Yeah, I was actually gonna say this to you later but was thinking this might need to be                                     it’s own episode. Because, what these people are suggesting is to get rid of the                                             system of prosecution vs. defence.

 

Devon:                         Okay…. [laughs] this is crazy

 

Riley:                           And their reasoning for this is that the whole court system is a kind of make believe                                       set up anyways. Two people in wigs and robes tell a story to 12 random people who                                     then decide the truest story between the two and then another person in a robe and                                       a wig decides a punishment based on stories told through anec-data.

 

Devon:                         Sorry what do you mean by anec-ata?

 

Riley:                           Sorry, anecdotal data, like how data can kinda tell a story. So in this case a predictive                                     technology usually tells a judge how likely it is that a defendant will do this crime                                             again based on data about his background.

 

Devon:                         Right, so what are these people suggesting?

 

Riley:                           Well, I don’t quite know yet, I need to do more research, but they are basically                                               suggesting that the story telling process of a court proceedings needs to change.

 

Devon:                         Well I think that’s probably a good place to stope, and I think maybe we should do a                                       part 2 to this. Maybe for the next episode, what do you think?

 

Riley:                           Yeah maybe we can do a poll on our socials and see what all you guys have to say.

 

Devon:                         Well thanks for joining us again.

 

Riley:                           Just incase you forgot, you’re listening to Devon and me, Riley from Learned Friends.                                     Please don’t discuss any of the evidence that you’ve heard here today, and bye for                                         now.

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