I, Robot to be 2018 Burning Man theme

It has been announced that the 2018 Burning Man festival will be based upon Issac Asimov’s classic book I, Robot. The book is known for three laws as shown below:

Per the Burning Man blog:

This year’s art theme will focus on the many forms of artificial intelligence that permeate our lives; from the humble algorithm and its subroutines that sift us, sort us and surveil us, to automated forms of labor that supplant us. Are we entering a Golden Age that frees us all from mindless labor? Everything, it seems, depends on HMI, the Human-Machine Interface. In a world increasingly controlled by smart machines, who will be master and who will be the slave?

Burning Man has been pioneering the post-work world for decades. What would you do if you could do what you wanted? And not what you had to do to make a living? Reawakening those desires is a transformative experience; relearning how to dream, how to play, how to have desires that arise innately from your being, rather than selected off a shelf of preprogramed experiences — and perhaps most importantly, to do all this in a community that brings you into living contact with your fellow human beings.

This year we invite participants to use their native genius to create expressive robots of all kinds. We also welcome art that examines how it feels to live in a world that is filled with robots that watch us, track us, hack us, read our tweets and emails, listen to our phone calls, and sell this information to other robots. This is a science fiction theme. As always, any work of art by anyone, regardless of our theme, is welcome at the Burning Man event. If you are planning to do fire art on the open playa, please see our Playa Art Guidelines for more information. To apply for a grant to fund the creation of artwork for Burning Man 2018, see our Black Rock City Honoraria page.