ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe presents Envisioning AI: Legacy and Impact of the Connection Machine

“Envisioning AI: Legacy and Impact of the Connection Machine” is an interdisciplinary hybrid conference marking the 40th anniversary of the Connection Machine (CM) series of supercomputers—a landmark in the development of massively parallel architectures and their far-reaching implications. This event revisits the origins of parallel computing as both a technical and cultural phenomenon. By bringing together voices from technology, design, theory, and art, the conference fosters dialogues that connect past innovations with contemporary developments in AI. In his 1985 MIT thesis, Danny Hillis envisioned a machine “to perform the functions of the human mind, a thinking machine.” The realization of this vision led