Aidan Meller is the visionary behind Ai-Da, the world’s first ultra-realistic humanoid AI robot artist. Ai-Da is a sophisticated humanoid robot, with advanced AI, has a robotic arm system, equipped with facial recognition technology, a language model to speak, and uses various unique algorithms to be able to create art.
She has exhibited at the United Nations, the Tate, London’s Design Museum and the V&A, has written and performed poetry at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, and, along with her sculpture, was held in Egyptian customs for 10 days because of security issues over the cameras in her eyes, before presenting her work at the Great Pyramids of Giza.
Both artist and artwork, Ai-Da provokes conversations about the nature of creativity, the human/AI interface, and the unease it provokes.
Aidan Meller spoke to blooloop about Ai-Da. We explore her creation and creativity, the uneasy relationship between humans and machine, and the question to which Ai-Da is, if not the answer, then a response.
The inspiration behind Ai-Da
Meller begins by asking:
“How on earth does someone go around devising an artist robot? Or more to the point “Why?”
“I am a gallerist; I’ve had a gallery for over 20 years. We specialise in modernism: Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, but also, British Modernism, Henry Moore, Hepworth, the St. Ives Group. As a result of having the gallery, I had a very strange moment I’d like to tell you about:”
“I had an artist trying to sell me their art in the gallery. He was very technically competent; actually a really good artist.”
However:
“I knew it wouldn’t work, so I sadly said sorry and off he went. Then, as I sat down at my desk, I had a Picasso drawing on my right, and a Turner drawing above the mantlepiece. As I was thinking about this artist, looking at Picasso and Turner, I had this very strange clash and contrast. The artworks that I was looking at were not that good. They are by two of the greatest artists of all time, and yet the competence of these particular works was not high.”
By contrast:
“The guy that I said ‘no’ to had stunningly competent works.”
Finding a common thread
This raised a question:
“Around 1% of artists are super-successful and dominate the market, while 99% can’t even make a living. So, what is it, that the top artists were doing that no one else was doing, if it was not just a matter of technical prowess? I went about my business to answer that question: what makes the biggest artists so special?”
He got some wallpaper, went into a spare room, and tacked it around the walls. He then covered it in what he called the ‘Most Famous Artists’:
“Everything from Michelangelo to Raphael, to Constable and Turner, to Picasso, to Warhol, to Damien Hirst. I did it in columns. I added when they were born, where they were born, what institution they went to, and what academic background they had. The exercise also included their socio-economic status, where they went to school, their big break and the galleries that got involved. All their big moments, all the way through to their death.”
“As a result, I was able to do a weird thing. I was able to compare Tracy Emin with Michelangelo. I was able to compare Andy Warhol with Turner. It was an unusual thing to do, to see if there was something common to all for those top artists.
“There was nothing.”
Art as social commentary
He was despondent.
“It was a complete nightmare. I came down one night to my partner, and said, ‘My project isn’t working. I cannot see any links. There is nothing. Tracy Emin is nothing like Michelangelo. Andy Warhol is nothing like Constable. There is nothing specific that is common to all of them.’
“She said, flippantly, ‘Well, you’re asking the wrong questions’. So, I went up the next night, and instead of looking at the walls, I just looked at my questions, really interrogating them. I looked at everything: the artists’ backgrounds, their brainpower, their gallery status, everything. I thought, ‘I’m asking all the right questions. Nothing is missing.’ And then it suddenly occurred to me – and this is where everything changed – I hadn’t compared their audiences.”
Who was looking at Michelangelo in Michelangelo’s time? Who was looking at Damien Hirst in Damien Hirst’s time and who was looking at Constable in Constable’s time?
“I had this enormous rush and epiphany,” Meller explains. “Every single audience had one common denominator. It was the most unbelievable insight. All of these artists were exploring difficult, troubling, worrisome issues of their day.
“The reason they became super-famous was not that they were in their ivory towers doing amazing work. They became super famous because when they put their artwork out there, society was already grappling with those tricky issues, and went, ‘Yes! That’s how I feel!’ Their genius is distilling what the society was feeling.”
Artificial Intelligence
Accordingly, he says:
“Then, I asked my second question. Now, my first question had been what was common to the top artists? My answer was that they were all dealing with the tricky issues of their day that society related to. The second question was, therefore, if that is true, what is the issue that is worrying everybody today? What is unsettling people now?
“With that, I then read 22 books about the near future, the 2020s, in biotechnology, in politics, in history, to look at what they were saying about where we think we might be going. They all disagreed with each other.”
So, he got some more wallpaper, tacked it to the wall, and set about working out the factor common to those 22 experts.
He says:
“There was one thing that was common to all 22 experts and, astonishingly, it drove everything. That was the disruptive nature of AI, and how that would be applied to an enormous number of areas in society.”
The beginning of Ai-Da
“My third and final section of this little study was – what do I know about AI?”
He contacted Oxford University:
“I’m connected to the university. I spoke to the machine learning department, and I delved into and researched the aspects of AI.”
The more he read about AI, the more worried he became.
“I realised that people are truly worried. They are worried about the technology, its impact, the way that it can manipulate audiences; the metaverse, Facebook, the media, all those things that have huge impacts using technology.”
One day, he was playing with his son:
“He made a little Lego robot, and that was the moment. As I was looking at this robot, with all of this stuff going on in the back of my mind, I thought to myself: is it possible to create an AI robot that made AI artwork that critiqued and commented on the rise of AI and technology in society today?”
A massive undertaking
It was, arguably, an interesting response. Many people would have written a book. Meller decided to create Ai-Da.
“It was,” he says, “a strange project. I had to go and get a robotics company. I also had to go and get a huge number of AI programmers. In the end, if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have started it. It was incredibly challenging.”
It took two years to research and build the robot:
“There were lots of dead ends, lots of problems, and the costs escalated until they were eye-watering. We had over 30 people involved, including 15 programmers. It was the most challenging and awkward and relentless period.”
The creativity of Ai-Da
Eventually, however, the robot was created.
“We named her Ai-Da, after Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer of all time. And she can be creative, which is the most astonishing thing.”
This is a claim many people would find hard to swallow. Can a machine be creative? Meller uses academic Margaret Boden’s philosophical definition of creativity: something that is new, surprising and of value.
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He says: “Most people when they look at something like this, would say, ‘Well, she’s just running programs. That’s not creative.’”
“That is because currently, sadly, even though we’re quite a long way in now, the public is still not aware that computer programming itself has changed. We are still educating the audience to make them realise that AI algorithms do not have to follow the same course.
“There are a trillion paths that they can follow, so when Ai-Da is drawing, she looks at you and she’s able to capture your likeness. If she looked at you again, she’d do a different likeness. Then, if she drew you a third time, it would be a different image that she drew or painted. She does unique, creative works.”
The AI art fulfils Professor Boden’s definition of what creativity is.
Cutting-edge technology
Ai-Da is also, he says, highly expressive:
“This is a real shock to everybody; they don’t expect a robot to be expressive. We spent a lot of time on that ability, so much so that people are emotional about her work, even though she has no emotions.”
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The language model, too, is cutting-edge. She speaks and writes using a language model, and it responds in an unprecedented way.
“She is very sophisticated, she has been trained now for two and a half years on various data sets. So, she is incredibly eloquent – she speaks in a way that you would not expect.”
A big reception
Ai-Da was launched – or born, on 11th February 2019. She made her debut solo exhibition at Oxford University, at Lady Margaret Hall and St. John’s College.
“What we hadn’t realised is the enormous response it would get. Her first exhibition was covered by over 900 publications, and then we were invited everywhere.”
Ai-Da went to Tate Modern. She went to the Barbican. She went to the Ars Electronica in Austria:
“We went to Abu Dhabi,” he continues. “We went to Dubai. She ended up doing an interview with Tim Marlow, the artistic director of the Royal Academy, and then she did a TEDx talk. It was the most stunning period.”
Then COVID-19 hit. People still wanted to see Ai-Da, but she could no longer accept invitations.
“We decided to develop her even further,” he says. “So, during the pandemic, her ability to speak has been refined. She has a new drawing and painting arm, and she’s also now able to do sculpture, actually putting her hands into clay, which is the most astonishing thing.”
Ai-Da on show
As the pandemic eased, Ai-Da did her first solo museum show:
“It was at the Design Museum, doing self-portraits. The world’s first self-portraits with no self, because, of course, there is no ‘self’ behind the self-portrait.” What does that even mean for identity in the digital age? What is our digital ‘self’?
They then went on to do a showing at the V&A Museum, where Ai-Da’s art installation showed artworks for the upcoming Metaverse, inspired by Eadweard Muybridge, with the Biomimicry Collection from science-fashion house Auroboros. Ai-Da wore a real-time growing couture gown.
“Her first metaverse works caused a huge stir. We then went on to do an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, where she did the world’s first museum recital of poetry by a robot, based on Dante.
“Then we finished the thing with a real bang: Ai-Da was invited to exhibit a major sculpture next to the pyramids.”
It was the first time artists had exhibited next to the pyramids. However, on arrival, despite having been invited by the government, Ai-Da was seized, along with her sculpture. She was held by Customs for 10 days, as a potential spy:
“The press found out,” Meller says. “It went on the front cover of The Guardian, it went on the front cover of The Times. It went to over 2500 publications that she was a spy. We had to get the British Ambassador to step in to get her released and to have the sculpture released in time for the exhibition, which we were only just able to do. It was the most uncomfortable, difficult time.”
New projects ahead
Ai-Da also has a solo show during the Venice Biennale this year, with her own full pavilion in Venice. This show is looking at the metaverse, in particular. The team then flew on to the Culture Summit in Abu Dhabi, before returning to the UK, where Ai-Da will be appearing at Glastonbury Festival.
“I don’t know whether I can reveal what she will be doing there, yet, or not,” he says. “We are in conversations, too, with museum shows internationally, and then she has a major thing at the end of the year, which is still under an NDA.”
Ai-Da generates discussions
Ai-Da provokes conversations about the nature of creativity, and of art, the nature of AI, the data driving algorithms, and the extent to which that data is biased. She forces us to think about the merge, the confusion at the interface between humans and machines.
Ai-Da’s appearance also manifests that confusion: there is an ambivalence. She is the personification of the uncanny valley, with her human face, her micro-movements, her human voice, and robotic arms that do not concede humanity.
“We can’t quite work her out,” Meller says:
“She’s somehow not right. There’s something that bothers people. When she does anything public, people either love her, think she’s the future, and can’t wait to see more of that sort of thing. Or, they feel terror, and an urge to destroy her. There is this unsettling aspect to what she is doing; what is she doing with that data? Where is that data going?”
Ai-Da crystallises the fear of what is already happening, of course, with our mobile phones. She foreshadows technology, and this makes people fearful.
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“The big worry is that she and her art shows the hacking of the human,” Meller points out. “We are algorithms; we are algorithmic and habitual in our systems that run organic systems as humans.”
The data-driven insights into those organic systems will soon, he contends, be greater than any we possess:
“When you go into the metaverse, there will be the ability to offer you, in seductive ways, things they know will appeal to aspects of your character.”
Exploring the metaverse
More disturbingly, perhaps:
“From the human perspective, when you go into the metaverse and take on a new avatar, you will be afforded freedom, an ability to explore aspects of your character that wasn’t possible before. I think that has, again, quite a dark potential, in terms of mental health issues.”
He adds:
“We have also done a range of works on biotech. The works that she did in Egypt explored CRISPR technology, especially, looking at the fact that while gene replacement could be used to eradicate disease genetically, it also could create humans that are stronger, more intelligent, and more robust. This would be ethically incredibly problematic and difficult.
“The questions that Ai-Da raises with art, whether it’s the metaverse, whether it’s through biotechnology, whether it’s looking at surveillance, whether it’s looking at mimicry, or whether it’s looking at the blur between machine and human interface, each time it’s flagging up a worry that people have.”
Ethical considerations
The fact that there is a worry makes it right to question it, in terms of ethical considerations.
“It’s the domino effect we need to question, rather than the immediate effect. For instance, where will Zuckerberg opening up the metaverse lead? We can’t see the implications.
“Here’s a little throwaway, as an illustration. Ai-Da can write; she also did some poetry for the Ashmolean Museum. She can write in a plausible, convincing way, which cannot, at times, be distinguished from a human’s writing.”
“What is to stop someone with a motive or a goal from using that AI capacity to write like a human to manipulate social media, sending messages to millions of users, individualising them using the data to optimise them for those most susceptible to receiving that message?
“That technology is here, now, and also it’s just starting. That’s just one tiny little result of the fact AI writing can be indistinguishable from a human’s before we even start getting into deepfakes, and the potential for those words to be spoken.”
Ai-Da is an ethical arts project
The conversations that Ai-Da is driving through her exhibitions during the Venice Biennale, the Tate, the Barbican, or the V&A are crucial.
In conclusion, he says:
“My statement for Ai-Da is that she is an ethical arts project that is exploring the issues impacting us today that have not been resolved. Art is a remarkable channel through which we can discuss very challenging issues. Great art and great artists have always done this. They are relevant to their time.
“We can use art as a conduit for engaged discussion, to be able to resolve and move forward in the safest possible way, a solution to some of these difficult issues.”
