Realistic humanoid robot Ai-Da headlines art for Glastonbury Festival


We’re all used to the idea of robots completing labor, but what about partaking in creative arts? Engineer Aidan Miller has decided to engage in that endeavour, creating an ultra-realistic humanoid robot that can paint.

Called Ai-Da, the robotic artist was a headline artist for the annual Glastonbury Festival. Not only did the robot work on the festival’s huge banner, but it will also be showing off its skills on the Somerset Festival.

Robotic painting skills

Ai-Da was able to draw a banner that features Billie Eilish, Diana Ross, Kendrick Lamar, and Sir Paul McCartney. BBC claims that Ai-Da is able to capture their appearances through a mixture of cameras and computer memory. Once the scanning is complete, it uses its robotic arm to start painting these people.

It seems Ai-Da has been active since being built in 2019, as its official website says the robot has demonstrated its skills during its first solo show at University of Oxford called Unsecured Features. There seem to be more shows in Ai-Da’s future, as an ultra-realistic robot is already planned to give live demonstrations during the aforementioned Somerset Festival.

In previous exhibitions, the realistic humanoid robot held its own art exhibit. In the exhibit, Ai-Da created numerous images using artificial intelligence and her eyes, a series of cameras and sensors.

Furthermore, the robot was able to get into poetry as well as traditional painted art. In one event, the robot created its own passages continuing Dante’s Divine Comedy.

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Ai-Da’s painting is only getting started

From what we’ve seen thus far, Ai-Da already has pretty impressive art skills for a robot. While we’ve seen other robots do other forms of art, this one has an actual face and continues to paint. The fact that it’s already showing off some of its skills is one thing and creator Aiden Miller claims that we’ll see more of Ai-Da.

"After making history with her self portraits, Ai-Da is continually developing her skills,” claims Miller. "It's an exciting time as her painting ability is progressing, and there's a lot of innovation."

Considering how Ai-Da’s art skills are already impressive, it will be interesting to see just how much it improves. Will we actually see a museum filled with Ai-Da’s art? That’s probably a long shot but you never know what could happen in the future.

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