Negotiating anthropomorphism in the Ai-Da robot

Abstract

The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Gallery/Oxford University), perceived as an actor in the interplay of cultural and representational gestures. These gestures determine how this robot is presented—that is, how its activities are articulated, interpreted and promoted. This paper criticises the use of a transhistorical discourse in the presentational strategies around this robot, since this discourse reinforces the so-called “myth of a machine”. The discussion focuses on the individuation and embodiment of this drawing robot. It is argued that the choice to provide Ai-Da with an evocative silicone face, coupled with an anthropomorphic body, is a socio-political decision that shapes public imaginaries about social robots in general.

‘People don’t buy art, they buy artists’: Robot artists – work, identity, and expertise

“…To do this, they engage with the concept of creative assemblage as a 'means of analysing creativity and creative practice in ways that refuse to reify the (creative) subject of these practices' (Duff and Sumartojo, 2017: 424). This aligns with several contributions that approach AI and creativity relationships in terms of human and non-human assemblages (Ashton, 2022;Romic, 2021;Taffel, 2019;Zylinska, 2021).…”

“…Understanding how Ai-Da's artistic identity is constructed requires extending beyond the discourse analysis approach used in existing analysis of Ai-Da (Romic, 2021). Romic's (2021) examination of Ai-Da, social robots, and public imaginaries uses Foucauldian discourse analysis to address language and the shaping of public opinion. To address the question on how Ai-Da's artistic identity is constructed, this article examines the ongoing construction, maintenance and negotiation of Ai-Da's artistic identity across four types of mediated sources: Social media (S); Promotion and presentations (P); Exhibition and performance (E); Journalistic media coverage (J).…”

AI art and public literacy: the miseducation of Ai-Da the robot

“…Indeed, many of the questions from the press revolved around the robots' 'own opinions' about the need for human-machine cooperation, the limitations of their current abilities, and the need for AI regulation. Some of the most poised and reassuring answers came from Ai-Da, "the world's first ultra-realistic AI robot artist," 2 conceived in 2019 by gallerist Aidan Meller, in collaboration with Oxford-based curator and researcher Lucy Seal, and built by Engineered Arts, a Cornish robotics company, together with AI researchers at the University of Oxford and at the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds [63]: 2083]. As the official website explains [1], Ai-Da the robot, named after Ada Lovelace, is capable of drawing by using cameras placed in its eyes and AI algorithms, and it collaborates with humans to create paintings and sculptures.…”

“…10 The audience was thus left under the impression of witnessing in real-time a robot rivalling one of the most celebrated writers of the Western Canon. Moreover, if not very familiar with Dante's oeuvre, they might have even attributed to Ai-Da's literary sensitivity Dante's powerful image of someone with 7 The only thorough analysis of the use of anthropomorphism and creativity in the Ai-Da project is conducted by Bojana Romic [63], whose study constitutes an important precedent for this article. While Romic identifies some of the main problematic aspects of Ai-Da the robot also discussed in this article, the present contribution further expands the analysis by engaging with a vast number of sources and examples never before taken into consideration, and by focusing mostly on ethical and technical aspects specific to this robot, rather than on the aesthetic and philosophical issues central to Romic's article.…”

“…This is what Romic describes as the process of individuation, an essential trait in the Ai-Da project. Individuation serves to undermine or disregard "the labour of associated humans that make the robot capable of performing a certain action," which in turn "feeds the fantasy of the robot's autonomy/ independence/AGI" [63]: 2086].…”