War Is Never the Answer
War Is Never the Answer
On Artificial Intelligence, Technology, and the Dissolving Image of Power
Artificial intelligence did not appear suddenly. Its origins can be traced to the mid-twentieth century, when early computer scientists began exploring whether machines could simulate aspects of human thinking. What began as theoretical research has evolved into one of the defining technologies of our time, shaping how images are produced, how information circulates, and how power is organized.
Today AI operates across many domains—from communication and creative production to surveillance infrastructures and military technologies. As the technology expands, so do the questions surrounding it: questions of ethics, responsibility, authorship, and the ways technological systems reinforce or challenge existing structures of power.
In recent years, artificial intelligence has entered the art world at an accelerating pace. Some artists embrace it as a new medium, while others question its implications for originality and artistic authorship. Yet such debates are not new. Throughout art history, new technologies have repeatedly unsettled established practices. When photography appeared in the nineteenth century, many painters feared it would undermine painting itself. Instead, artists gradually incorporated the camera into their process, transforming how images could be seen and constructed.
Artists have long used images to confront the violence of their time. Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937), painted after the bombing of the Spanish town during the Spanish Civil War, became one of the most powerful artistic responses to war. Rather than depicting battle directly, Picasso fractured bodies and symbols to reveal the brutality of conflict.
This work approaches the subject differently. Using artificial intelligence, the image presents a weapon carved from ice—solid at first glance, yet slowly dissolving. Drop by drop, the form collapses under the simple forces of time and gravity. What is normally associated with permanence and power becomes fragile and temporary.
In this transformation lies a quiet reversal. The symbol of violence does not explode or shatter; it simply melts. Power dissolves into water, one of the most fundamental resources of life.
In a world increasingly shaped by intelligent machines and the structures of power behind them, the question remains:
What kind of future are we choosing to build?