The tree of the knowledge of good and evil [Lignum scientiae boni et mali]

The two brief speeches featured on the soundtrack form the core of this video art essay, accompanied by images created with artificial intelligence. The apple of knowledge, the apple of temptation, the poisoned apple, the rotten apple, the apple of discord, the apple of immortality… who knows if it's the apple that inspired Newton, the one bitten in Paradise, or those stolen from the Garden of the Hesperides. We don't know if the apples offered by AI and the latest scientific advances are solid gold or painted with glitter; if they contain unimaginable benefits for all humanity or only for a select few; scientists warn us that they also carry real risks that we previously attributed to science fiction. Perhaps we are reaching the culmination of that society of simulacra that Baudrillard spoke of: never before have we experienced greater confusion between true and false, real and artificial. Nor is there much fascination with new tools that, on the one hand, never cease to amaze us and make tasks easier, and on the other, are perceived as a threat to many jobs and even to the survival of humanity. Hyperrealism, semantic algebra, naiveté…