The future exhibition, consisting of images, drawings and sculptures created by a humanoid robot, can be seen at ST. John’s College, University of Oxford.
The main star of the exhibition is a robot based on artificial intelligence and is resembling a woman. The concept was created by the director of the art gallery, Aidan Meller. The robot’s name Ai-Da, is a tribute to Ada Lovelace, a 19th-century British mathematician and innovator. it is known from publications on the so-called analytical machine, considered to be the first general-purpose programmable computer.
Scientists from Oxford, who are responsible for writing the algorythm used by him, helped to construct the robot artist. Thanks to the built-in camera and mechanical arms (constructed with the help of the university of Leeds), Ai-Da can recreate still life and posing models in real time.
a humanoid robot does not simply recreate previously photographed images. It’s works are created in a way unprecended in a machine, with the use of “sight” and other tools. The cameras in the eyes record objects in front of it and then create a virtual pattern embedded in the coordinate system. These coordinates are used by an advanced mechanical arm that holds a pencil or a brush. In the same way-based on the map it creates and using implemented algorithms-Ai-Da can also create abstract works of art.
The exhibition questions our relationship with technology and the natural world, showing how artificial intelligence and new technologies can be both a progressive and destructive force in our society. Ai-Da as a humanoid robot is itself a work of art that further raises questions related to biotechnology and transhumanism in the gallery statement
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