Telekom's #UNHATE turns real hate speech into AI art on the spot (interview)

Deutsche Telekom teamed with agency elastique. to create an experience supporting the meaningful use of technology: an immersive, interactive media installation where users themselves take action against hate on the web.

Visitors enter a media room literally full of hate speech and select one comment using Leap Motion contactless gesture control. 'Playful' walks a voice model through the post word by word and prompts a second AI to generate pop-art imagery; 'Mindful' models cellular growth that overgrows the hate one pixel at a time; 'Progressive' recycles it into an abstract sculptural artwork. Three artists contributed interpretations.

The material reports no metrics; the installation makes anti-hate action physical and individual — each visitor transforms one real comment, which emerges as art 'deprived of its toxicity'.

In an interview with Red Dot's magazine, the team at German agency elastique. walked through #UNHATE BY ARTISTIC INTELLIGENCE, its installation with Deutsche Telekom: a media room immersed in real hate speech where visitors are invited to do something about it.

Using Leap Motion contactless gesture control, a visitor selects one comment, and one of three AI systems transforms it into art. 'Playful' deconstructs the language of hate word by word — each word coded by a voice model — then has a second AI model generate dreamlike, pop-art-inflected images. 'Mindful' models cellular growth that overgrows and dissolves the hate one pixel at a time. 'Progressive' treats the comment as material, recycling it into an abstract sculpture.

The point, the agency said, is that companies should curate constructive discourse: it is not okay to anonymously discriminate against people for their sexuality, ethnicity or background. Here, the audience performs that correction themselves, one comment at a time.

Gesture control makes the choice physical — the visitor personally selects the comment they will disarm.

Three distinct aesthetics show transformation is plural: play, biology and sculpture each detoxify differently.

The comments are real tweets, keeping the work honest rather than theatrical.

Against an abstraction like online hate, give people one small act: transform a single comment and the principle becomes tangible.

The interview appears in Red Dot's magazine coverage of the project; deployment details beyond the media room are not given.