Soulmachine – das selbstlernende Robotaxi

Five people sit across from each other on two benches of a minibus. These passengers are test subjects for a studious software for fully automated driving. By means of tablets and voice control, they communicate with the Artificial Intelligence, accompanied by a software developer. The course of the journey depends on their decisions and behaviour. How do the passengers communicate, both with their self-learning robo-cab and among each other? A mobile human machine on a test parcours that explores the future, complete with system failure and a crash-test simulation.


On its journey through Leipzig, “Soulmachine” negotiates the micro-politics that prevail between passengers and machine. In his performance piece, Lajos Talamonti confronts participants with the moral consequences that occur when they divest and relieve themselves of their agency and responsibility. What are the ethical standards which we as a society want to develop if we cede more and more of our competence for action to Artificial Intelligence? As a social experimentation field between fear of the future and dreams of innovation, technology is experienced by all the senses: All aboard, please!