I visited the 'world's first' AI art museum. It was dazzling, strange, and more thought-provoking than I expected.

• Dataland, “the world’s first museum of AI arts,” opened in Los Angeles last month.
• The multi-sensory experience includes wearable devices and interactive AI-generated art.
• The art is generated with an AI model that’s trained on data from the natural world.

The art was often beautiful and interactive

Being tracked through a museum could weird some people out

Without the feeling that the art was the direct result of a thinking, feeling human being, it was hard for me to connect with much of it.

The most moving part of the experience for me wasn’t AI-generated at all — it was a real recording of a now-extinct Hawaiian bird, calling out for a mate and getting no response.

I spent much of my time at Dataland ruminating on a simple question: What is art? And can it really come from AI?

While the images were often dazzling and I enjoyed parts of it more than I expected, I left with a lingering uncertainty about whether I’d seen art, tech, or a strange new combination of both.