Court of the Irreconcilable Difference Engine

An interactive cyberpunk divorce case; an exercise in community-calibrated justice

I created an interactive experience for the cyberpunk festival Neotropolis. For this project, I wanted to focus on themes of justice, personhood, and gray morality, so I wrote a court case scenario, summarized as follows:

A human and an artificial intelligence are married, but they are seeking a divorce due to irreconcilable differences. Should the divorce be granted, and, if so, how should their assets be split?

Who has culpability? Who has rights? What is an equitable solution when both parties cannot be simultaneously satisfied?

I created this experience in 2024, a time when the rise of artificial intelligence was causing a wide range of reactions throughout society. There are two AIs that feature in this experience. The first AI is Harold, a jailbroken spaceship navigation system, who is married to a human woman, Amelia.

Neotropolis participants at the event.

A difference engine, built to the original design, at the London Museum of Science.

The second AI is the court’s judge, named the Irreconcilable Difference Engine (IDE), which is a pun on irreconcilable differences and difference engine, the term for the first computer.

The interactive experience is named Court of the Irreconcilable Difference Engine (CIDE), after the judge. The court decides almost all cases on its own, given that the AI judge is impartial and effective. However, the court occasionally calls juries of Neotropolis residents to deliberate on cases. The data from these juries is used to calibrate the machine so that the court may continue to be aligned with the morality of the local society.

I created a playtest version of the experience so that I could gather feedback before the actual installation. I drafted the narrative and build an electronics box. This box simulated the “control panel” into which jurors would submit their collective ruling on the case.

A quick and dirty prototype of the control panel, used as part of the playtest

I received a lot of useful feedback as part of the playtest. It helped me to establish a 30 minute timecap for the experience, as well as requiring groups of 3 to 8 participants at a time.

Once I had solidified the narrative and the experience format, I designed and built the electronics, props, branding, and set decoration for the final 10 foot by 10 foot installation space. I used visual cues from courtrooms such as long curtains and framed portraits.

I purposefully distributed the props and interactive elements throughout the space so that participants would be rewarded for exploring the room. The IDE and control panel were centered at the back of the room, as a judge would be in a courtroom today.

The final floorplan, after adjustments onsite.

A panoramic view of the inside of the courtroom at night.

For the visuals, I stuck with a cyberpunk aesthetic for the fonts and colors. I created posters and brochures for the court, plus I built a neon-style LED sign.

I created sturdy, simple electronic interfaces for the game to allow for ease of transport and maintenance in the challenging conditions.

I installed the experience at Neotropolis with the help of a few friends. Around 100 people served on the jury across four days at the event. I am grateful to have received positive reviews from many participants. I observed that the people who engaged the most wholeheartedly in the case tended to have the most fun. I really enjoyed running the court sessions, and I look forward to iterating on this project and bringing it to events in future years!

Miren Bamforth

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