It’s a good sign that we’re getting close to the robotic singularity when one can draw an entire portrait from sight. It’s one thing for machines to get smarter; it’s a whole ‘nother ball game for them to get more creative.
British gallery owner Aidan Meller has been overseeing the production of Ai-Da, a bionic device engineered to be the very first “AI ultra-realistic robot artist,” as Meller calls her. Provided you can overlook her bad case of Terminator-face, Ai-Da use a remote bionic arm holding a pencil to draw a complete human portrait based on sight alone. Ai-Da is designed to be both an artist and a performer, with her final version (thankfully covered by synthetic skin) planned to interact with and speak to an audience.
Right now, Ai-Da can only manage a pencil and sketches, but the team is developing some specialized tools to allow her to paint detailed pictures. Ai-Da can already track a moving object around a room, so there is potential for some impressive panoramic pieces, among other things. Ai-Da herself will be on display at the “Unsecured Futures” exhibition at the University of Oxford in May. In November, portraits sketches drawn by Ai-Da will be displayed at an unspecified venue in London.
