Cloud Index

Cloud Index is a digital commission for the Serpentine Galleries, exploring artificial intelligence, computer prediction, and the weather. It uses machine learning to explore vast amounts of weather and political polling data, in order to produce hybrid, actionable forecasts, and advocates for geoengineering to change democratic outcomes.

Since the beginning of time, humans have looked to the sky to determine the future; today we look to the Cloud. The technologies we are developing today are capable of analysing the world at a scale never before imagined. Satellites scour the earth's surface from orbit; sensors in our devices record our every move, and every mood. By processing this data, we attempt to predict, and thus control, future outcomes.

At the same time, and over many years, we have developed technologies for predicting, and altering, the weather. We can seed and disperse clouds, change the reflectivity of the atmosphere, and alter the global climate. For centuries, we have done so unintentionally; now we must consider the question of whether we should do so intentionally.

Cloud Index is accompanied by extensive texts on neural networks and the history of computation and weather control, as well as the possibilities of cloud thinking.

(Please note, this work, originally hosted at http://cloudindx.com/ is now archived at http://cloudindx.jamesbridle.com/)