Manchester-based conceptual illustrator and lifelong pacemaker patient Ollie Hirst creates a series of hand-drawn editorial illustrations for BBC Science Focus on the times AI has failed spectacularly, using cyberpunk neons against greyscale to put human emotion at the heart of a story about machine trust.
The brief was precise and the timeline was not: seven days to illustrate a feature on the times AI got it drastically wrong, in association with Professor Hannah Fry’s BBC documentary AI Confidential. Ollie Hirst took the pressure and found a concept that matched the subject.
The series examines the developing relationship between humans and machine learning at its most troubled: digital AI therapists for mental health, simulations of the dead used to manage grief, algorithms acting as lifelong lovers. Each scenario represents a moment where the trust placed in technology produced results ranging from the inadequate to the genuinely harmful. The visual language Hirst developed for the project draws on cyberpunk aesthetics: electric neons infiltrating a greyscale foundation of daily life, the technology rendered as something that invades the ordinary rather than sits alongside it. The colour choice is deliberate.
“The challenge when working with a tech subject is to tap into a familiar visual language we all know, but still finding a fresher edge to it,” he says. The neons do both: they are recognisably cyberpunk and they are distinctly uncomfortable.
The concept is built around infiltration, which suits the broader concerns of the AI ethics debates the feature addresses: copyright breaches, environmental impact, biases and misinformation, all amplified by the trust we place in these systems. Hirst wanted a stark reminder of that darker side, and the greyscale foundation is what makes the neon intrusions land with force.
“I like my work to hinge on a strong idea, filtering complex topics into clear concepts that inform, inspire, engage and advocate, helped by a splash of colour,” he says.
He calls his approach “Bright Colour and Brighter Ideas,” and this project puts both to use.
All work was hand drawn in Procreate on iPad. Hirst does not use AI in his working process.
Ollie Hirst is an award-winning conceptual illustrator based in Manchester, known as the Bionic Man. A lifelong cardiac pacemaker patient with Congenital Heart Block, his practice translates science, health and technology into vivid human stories for clients including AstraZeneca, the BBC, The British Heart Foundation, The Lancet, New Scientist and The New York Times.
Website: olliehirst.co.uk Instagram: @olliehirstillustration
When AI Got It Spectacularly Wrong, BBC Science Focus, April issue. Illustrator: Ollie Hirst. Art directors: Sam Freeman and Joe Eden. Author: Chris Stokel-Walker. Agency: Our Media. Client: BBC Science Focus. Agent: Making Pictures.
