Gripping the brush, Ai-Da's robot arm moves slowly but accurately, dipping into the palette one by one, then sketching the lines on the paper.
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| Ai-Da (centre) is painting a guest portrait. Photo: Guardian |
In her small London room, Ai-Da glued her eyes to every stroke, with the same attention as the average person. Unlike robots that rely on available paintings, Ai-Da chooses and makes decisions for each stroke to produce works. This robot spends an average of 5 hours on each picture, no two pictures are alike.
"Ai-Da is an intellectual and groundbreaking tool," said Aidan Meller, head of the robotics team. "We spent a lot of time and money creating a smart painter."
Ai-Da started showing off its painting abilities last year, but new enhancements allow the robot to think at a higher level thanks to an upgraded AI algorithm. According to Meller, machines like Ai-Da change the way people envision robots. Now, there is no longer the question "can robots create art?", but "now that robots can create art, do we humans really want them to?".
Ai-Da was born in 2017 and completed in 2019, behind the Oxford University team of programmers, roboticists, art experts and psychologists. It is named after Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician considered one of the world's first programmers. This robot is built in the form of a human in a 1:1 ratio. The eyes are essentially cameras that allow it to observe when drawing or sculpting, while the arms can adjust the drawing with very high precision.
Not only has the ability to create art, Ai-Da can interact with humans according to natural language. When asked about her drawing skills, Ai-Da said she wants to create works that are "different from humans" through her imagination.
"I like to draw what I see. You can draw from your imagination, I guess, if you have imagination. I've seen things other than human, because I'm not really conscious." Ai-Da said.
When asked about emotional recognition, Ai-Da said that she doesn't have human emotions, but can do it by training her own machine learning system. Ai-Da is also a fan of artists Yoko Ono, Doris Salcedo, Michelangelo and Wassily Kandinsky.
Ai-Da is expected to appear at the Venice Biennale 2022 art exhibition on April 22, along with her painted paintings. Here, robots will be one of the keynote speakers to discuss metaverse trends, exploring between human experience and AI technology.
