Ai-Da the AI robot artist speaks in UK parliament
Ai-Da Robot, the world's first ultra-realistic robot artist, made history by becoming the first robot to speak at the House of Lords on Tuesday.
While there, she took questions about whether creativity is under attack from the rise of Artificial Intelligence and technology.
The robot, who is able to converse using a specially designed AI language model, commented before her appearance: "I believe that machine creativity presents a great opportunity for us to explore new ideas and ways of thinking. However, there are also risks associated with this technology which we need to consider carefully. We need to think of benefits and limitations, and consider ethical implications."
After being greeted by Liberal Democrat peer Lynne Featherstone, Ai-Da shut down and needed to be rebooted.
Ahead of the session, her creator Aidan Meller said: "Creativity is changing. Ai-Da challenges what it means to be an artist in a post-human world. Her abilities as an artist brings into question the foundations of the art world and the creative industries. Ai-Da's maiden speech at the House of Lords will help us to understand how an AI robot sees the world and what that means for the future of creativity."
Although not human, or conscious, Ai-Da Robot is an artist working in the creative field, creating art in a variety of mediums that have been displayed all around the world. She has the ability to produce unique artworks across the mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture, performance art and poetry.
Meller - a specialist in contemporary and modern art - first had the inspiration for Ai-Da when his son made a Lego robot. He then teamed up with the machine learning department at Oxford and PhD students from Birmingham University and robotics firm Engineered Arts to bring the AI artist to life.
