Sweat for Generation - Experiencing the Labor Unseen

By Amo Zeng, Ziwei Ji, Xiesiyuan Shu, Yuqing Zhang, Bingyi Liu

Installation & Interactive Art

“Sweat for Generation - Experiencing the Labor Unseen” transforms AI's effortless facade into a raw display of human labor, revealing the hidden power consumption behind the easy, intuitive digital interactions we exploit daily. Participants turn the hand crank intensely to generate a single query, exposing the resource-demanding process masked behind. A single AI query materializes as hours of sustained physical exertion- sweat, muscle strain, and raw human effort powering complex machine learning models. By bodily mapping the energy economy of AI, the artwork exposes data centers, global supply chains, and mineral extraction obscured by digital interfaces. They challenge audiences to confront and reflect on the true cost of digital convenience.