"Biotech people are scientists, AI people are wizards" | Ghost in the Slop

On September 24th, Xin Wang and Trevor Paglen came together at the Hill Art Foundation for ‘Ghost in the Slop,’ a conversation exploring AI and cultural production across comparative cultural frameworks.⁠ The program’s title is shared with a forthcoming essay by Xin Wang, which examines the deep, culturally-specific sub-consciousness hallucinated by new forms of AI-assisted visual production, continuing from her contribution in Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence (2025).⁠ ⁠ Similarly, Paglen’s work investigates the politics and mechanisms of computer vision and generative AI that not only inform, but also transform our realities. As Paglen writes in his recent publication, How to See Like a Machine: Images After AI (2026), “When it comes to understanding the origins and emergence of a post-AI visual culture, it may be that we have the most to learn from the Weird.”⁠ Video: Oresti Tsonopoulos