During the COVID pandemic, artist Ayoung Kim accompanied delivery workers in Seoul as they raced around the city dropping off food and essential supplies. Kim was struck by the way that algorithms dictated their movements around the city. “I wanted to show the individual rider’s dependency on the governance of the app [and] how this one-way protocol, disciplined communication, urges an individual human being to be optimized for speed and productivity,” she tells TIME.She turned her experiences into a multimedia art piece, Delivery Dancer Codex, which arrived at New York’s MoMA PS1 in the fall of 2025 and has cemented her as one of the art world’s fastest-rising stars. Kim appeared on the covers of Frieze and Artforum last year, and received the LG Guggenheim Award for her use of technology in art. As Kim critiques algorithms, she uses generative AI extensively in her art to build images and videos. Her bold exploration of AI has made her a lightning rod among artists, collectors and critics. “AI tech is reshaping our entire lives,” Kim says. “I have always wanted to comment on the impact of technology in our society by using it, by appropriating it.”