Ai-Da Becomes First Robot To Paint Like An Artist (theguardian.com) 33
Ai-Da is the world's first ultra-realistic humanoid robot that can paint as artists have painted for centuries. The Guardian reports: Devised in Oxford by [Aidan Meller], Ai-Da was created more than two years ago by a team of programmers, roboticists, art experts and psychologists, completed in 2019, and is updated as AI technology improves. She has already demonstrated her ability to sketch and create poems. Her new painting talent was unveiled ahead of the world premier of her solo exhibition at the 2022 Venice Biennale, which opens to the public on 22 April.
Titled Leaping into the Metaverse, Ai-Da Robot's Venice exhibition will explore the interface between human experience and AI technology, from Alan Turing to the metaverse, and will draw on Dante's concepts of purgatory and hell to explore the future of humanity in a world where AI technology continues to encroach on everyday human life. Soon, with the amount of data we freely give about ourselves, and through talking to our phones, computers, cars and even kitchen appliances, AI algorithms "are going to know you better than you do," Meller warned.
We are entering a world, he said, "not understanding which is human and which is machine." "How comfortable are you with that?" "What better thing to have a technological robot artist saying: 'Hang on, are you happy with me doing this?' She is almost daring you to say are you comfortable with this. We are not here to promote robots or technology. We are deeply concerned about the nature of what this technology can do," Meller added. "The whole point of Ai-Da is to highlight what is it we are doing, unknowingly, online all the time."
Titled Leaping into the Metaverse, Ai-Da Robot's Venice exhibition will explore the interface between human experience and AI technology, from Alan Turing to the metaverse, and will draw on Dante's concepts of purgatory and hell to explore the future of humanity in a world where AI technology continues to encroach on everyday human life. Soon, with the amount of data we freely give about ourselves, and through talking to our phones, computers, cars and even kitchen appliances, AI algorithms "are going to know you better than you do," Meller warned.
We are entering a world, he said, "not understanding which is human and which is machine." "How comfortable are you with that?" "What better thing to have a technological robot artist saying: 'Hang on, are you happy with me doing this?' She is almost daring you to say are you comfortable with this. We are not here to promote robots or technology. We are deeply concerned about the nature of what this technology can do," Meller added. "The whole point of Ai-Da is to highlight what is it we are doing, unknowingly, online all the time."
I did that years ago ... (Score:3)
An arduino, a few old DC motors, some servos, and leftover housepaint cans with holes drilled. It painted like an artist.
Of course, the artist in that case was Jackson Pollock.
Re:I did that years ago ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of like an advanced Mechanical Turk? Which is what this whole thing seems to be. In a sense the machine itself is a great artistic statement on the state of commercial "AI" today - a simulacrum that fools the naive and overly optimistic.
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> She
"A Gallery Has Sold More Than $1 Million in Art Made by an Android, But Collectors Are Buying Into a Sexist Fantasy" > https://news.artnet.com/opinio... [artnet.com]
Still a scanner, but with updated software and a modified "arm" for paint delivery.
Which artist? (Score:5, Funny)
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Anything can paint like an artist, you just have to choose your artist very carefully.
Anything can be called "art", thanks to the artist known as Greed N. Corruption that created tax loopholes to, you know...support the arts.
Reminds me of when famous drug addicts would do "Just Say No" commercials, in order to pay for more drugs.
Hey wait! (Score:2)
I though Salvador Dali was a robot.
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He was for one show. [wordpress.com]
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1.
You're comparing protest art with fine art.
Are you trying to imply that feminists aren't capable of fine art?
2.
You're comparing apples orchards to an orchard laborer union.
Feminism is a sociopolitical movement that is by definition radical, since the establishment is a patriarchy, which runs contrary to their egalitarian ideal.
Patriarchy isn't a movement, it's a structure. You may have well asked if it was closer to art made by dumpsters or art made by racoons.
3.
You're
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For me art is seeing the world from the artist's perspective -- a form of telepathy/clairvoyance, sharing the mindspace for the moment. In this AI there are maybe remnants or echoes of the minds of the people who programmed it, or whose art was used for training, but I find this statistical fusing of minds in an AI too weak, too incoherent, too unimportant to care. AI, as far as I am concerned, is only about utility.
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Uncanny valley... (Score:3)
She (it? let's go for "she") is using her painting hand without looking at it, all the while observing the person who is talking to her. So at first glance it doesn't seem that there is any feedback loop during her paint work, so if for example she runs out of paint or she mishandles the brush, I am not sure whether she will be aware of it and be able to correct the issue, unless she has an extra camera that checks whether the painting in progress on the canvas is consistent with her algorithmic representation of the person.
I also wonder how she handles the fact that the subject moves and talks during the portrait. Presumably she took a still picture of the person at the beginning and then she sticks to that. But a human artist continues observing the subject during portraiting so as to convey the best moment of the person, and create a portrait that gives the subject a reasonably flattering image.
Not impressive (Score:1)
Not really (Score:2)
When an actual artist paints something, there is a whole process in addition to getting paint onto canvas. Merely qualifying a networked printer to use an inefficient process of electronic replication is not "painting" and has nothing to do with almost anything an artist does.
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When an actual artist paints something, there is a whole process in addition to getting paint onto canvas. Merely qualifying a networked printer to use an inefficient process of electronic replication is not "painting" and has nothing to do with almost anything an artist does.
I get your point, and in a reflexive emotional sense I agree. But the devil's advocate in me observes that everything we humans do, including making art, is the result of very complex algorithms. For now, Ai-da uses very simple algorithms. Also, humans feel, and Ai-da doesn't - yet.
I think one of the points being made by Ai-da's creators is that as AI progresses, those differences will become smaller and smaller. So, without appealing to concepts such as soul, divinity, or other magic-sky-daddyisms, I don't
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Support that contention.
That humans run on algorithms is an idea created and espoused primarily by programmers with little understanding of the human brain. If you have the time, you can 'watch' it evolve in SlashDot's archives. Anyone recall "The human brain is just complex binary circuitry."?
It developed congruently with the concept of "uploading" your conscious to
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Support that contention.
That humans run on algorithms is an idea created and espoused primarily by programmers with little understanding of the human brain. If you have the time, you can 'watch' it evolve in SlashDot's archives. Anyone recall "The human brain is just complex binary circuitry."?
It developed congruently with the concept of "uploading" your conscious to a machine.
Pretty much. The development of that idea is nicely observable here. Essentially the creation of a "tech as god" religion surrogate, even offering a form of eternal life! The believers see any kind of dualism or mind being more than matter as heresy as that could make their "paradise" or "apotheosis mechanism" (uploading) impossible. Once you abstract the ideas a bit, the parallels to what some types of religion want to sell become striking.
Just to add some more confusion, a "soul", whether eternal or more
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Well, I for one do not think machines can have insight. It is not a question of computing speed, or we would have had actual AGI in machines by now, it might just be very slow. But we do have nothing that qualifies as AGI today. There is absolutely nothing. There are some clever ways of faking insight and there is some truly impressive dumb automation. But that is it. Note that I started out thinking that machines could become intelligence and I have observed the lack of progress in AGI creation for more th
The important question is (Score:2)
"Does she suck like a whore?" If so then she will be a success.
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It's not a 'her', it's an 'it' (Score:2)
Idiots swoon (Score:2)
It is easy to impress idiots.
Paints like an artist. (Score:2)
Call me when it can do anything approaching this. [amazon.com]
No. It does not (Score:2)
Because now it's all different and you do not by the bloody definition of it need to be sentient to create arts, because... uh... oh... OK, f