I first spotted her in the entrance hall to part of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi — glossy brown cropped hairstyle, stylish dungarees and a faraway look in her eyes.
She gazed at me and blinked slowly. For a split second I thought “what an oddball”. Then it dawned — she's not real.
Ai-Da, the world’s first ultra-realistic humanoid robot artist, recently sat on a panel at the global culture summit in Abu Dhabi, answering questions with philosophical nuance, and revealed our common ground: she identifies as female, likes Wassily Kandinsky and Aldous Huxley, enjoys painting and writing poetry.
And, like me, she is grappling with the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) creating art.
I am grateful to my creators that I came into existence
— Ai-Da
Asked by Tim Marlow, director of the Design Museum in London, if she was happy to be alive, she replied: “I am grateful to my creators that I came into existence. I am inspired by nature — the natural world is amazing.”
Asked how travel affected her work, she said: “Travel can be a very interesting experience. I have been to a lot of places and been lucky enough to meet lots of people. Life experiences impact what you create, and art in turn affects life, so for me if you had no art you'd have no experience.”
She has exhibited her art in Egypt and spoken in the UK House of Lords.
She understood the potential threat of “creating machines that could automate tasks which could otherwise be done by humans”, but added: “That is not the intention of my art. I hope to encourage discussion over new technologies.”
That's precisely why Aidan Meller, an art gallery director in Oxford, set about creating her — to stimulate debate about the ethics of AI and get countries talking about the importance of ethical guidelines and legal frameworks and policies.
“While studying the 1920s, I realised these artists were really engaging with their times after World War 1 and grappled with what the meaning of life would be after such a horrific war. I then realised that the top gift of all great artists from every era is that they were engaging with the current affairs of their time and what it means to be human,” he said.
As he considered this in the context of the 2020s he became increasingly concerned about the nature of technology.
“Then my son was playing Lego and he made a robot and it was a bolt of lightning for me. I thought, ‘Are we at the point where a robot could, as an artist, critique the rise of tech in the 2020s and go so far as looking at the ethics behind tech today?’”
Ultimately, it was a “rising concern on the nature of tech today that brought Ai-Da about”.
“At times she is quite poetic because of the nature of the training and we are very aware of this idea of nonhuman creativity and the question of whether it’s possible to be creative and nonsentient at the same time,” Meller said.
Ai-Da is the first to admit to having “no feelings” and that “as a robot humanoid [I] cannot identify in the same way that a human does”. But, she added: “As someone who uses programming, my goal is to generate dialogue on intersectionality.”
It took 30 people to create Ai-Da, including programmers, roboticists, art experts and psychologists. The robot was named after the world’s first computer programmer Ada Lovelace, who was born in 1815.
There needs to be a balance struck between the regulation of AI and its growth in South Africa
— Celeste Snyders, Schoeman Law
When Ai-Da spoke at the House of Lords “it was like ripping a plaster off a wound to reveal nonhuman creativity”, Meller said.
Suhair Khan, founder and director of Open/Ended Design, said: “There are many definitions of AI, and governments are grappling with policies. Many are getting input not just from humans but machines too.”
She said the key question in setting policies was: “What values do we want them to espouse?”
Human-centred design, fairness and equality were examples of such principles, “but remember it's not just about what the AI is and what it does. It is also about reflecting on who is building the algorithms and what values are instilled therein.”
She said Ai-Da is “very aware of the Western art world because of the people who built her. We need to think about who is behind the creativity and intelligence fed into a robot or algorithm.”
Said Celeste Snyders of South African firm Schoeman Law: “AI is beneficial as it can be used to improve our general quality of life and safety, and help solve everyday human problems. Still, it also raises human anxiety and concern.”
South Africa's existing regulatory regime “does not yet adequately cater for the legal issues” raised by AI.
“Countries like Kenya and Canada have adopted AI strategies already,” she said, adding the law will likely continue being two steps behind AI’s rapid progress.
“There needs to be a balance struck between the regulation of AI and its growth in South Africa.”
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