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Meet the robot Ai-Da, who writes poetry and creates works of art

When people think of artificial intelligence, the images that come to mind are sinister robots occupying the worlds of “The Terminator” (1984), “Me, Robot” (2004), “Westworld” (1973) and “Blade Runner” (1982). For many years, fiction has told us that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often used more for evil than for good.

But what we don’t usually associate with AI is art and poetry — but that’s exactly what Ai-Da, a super-realistic robot invented by Aidan Meller in Oxford, England, spends his time doing.

Ai-Da is the first ultra-realistic humanoid robot artist, and last Friday (26), she gave a public presentation of poetry she wrote using her algorithms in celebration of the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

The recital took place at Oxford University’s renowned Ashmolean Museum as part of an exhibition marking the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death.

Ai-Da’s poem was produced in response to the epic “The Divine Comedy” – which Ai-Da “devoured” in its entirety. This allowed her to use her algorithms to draw inspiration from Dante’s dialogue patterns and, using her own word database, to create her own work.

Ai-Da’s poem was described as “deeply emotional” by Meller and includes the following verse:

“We look over our verses like blindfolded captives

We sent to look for the light, but it never came

A needle and thread would be needed

To complete the image.

To see the poor creatures, who are in misery,

That of a hawk, eyes closed with stitching”

Meller said Ai-Da’s ability to imitate human writing is “so great that if you read it, you wouldn’t know it wasn’t written by a human.” He told ả CNN that when Ai-Da was reading your poem on Friday night, “it was easy to forget that you weren’t dealing with a human being.”

“The Ai-Da project was developed to bring attention to the debate about the ethical principles of developing artificial intelligence to imitate humans and human behavior,” Meller told CNN. “It is becoming evident to us that technology is having a huge impact on all aspects of life and we are looking to understand how much this technology can do and what it can teach us about ourselves.”

Meller said a key point he and the team working with Ai-Da learned during its development was that the project not only taught them how “human she is” — but how robotic we are as humans.”

As Ai-Da learned to imitate humans based on our behavior, Meller says the project showed how much humans have habits and how much we tend to repeat actions, words and patterns of behavior – suggesting that we are, in fact, robotics .

“Through Ai-Da and through the use of AI, we can learn more about ourselves than ever before – Ai-Da allows us to gain a new understanding of our patterns and habits, as we see them imitate them well in our front,” says Meller.

The robot Ai-Da is not only able to read and write poetry – she is also capable of creating works of art, creating one for Dante’s exhibition entitled “Eyes Wide Shut” in response to an incident in Egypt in October, when she forces Egyptian security authorities detained Ai-Da and wanted to remove the cameras from her eyes due to concerns about security and surveillance.

“The incident showed how nervous the world is about technology and its advances,” Meller said.

Meller understands the concerns of the continued advancement in the development of artificial intelligence and the potential of using algorithms to manipulate populations, but said that “the technology itself is benign – it is those who control it and whose intentions may be morally and ethically questionable. ”

According to Meller, when concerns arise about what future AI might lead us to, he says: “The biggest fear we should have shouldn’t be about AI, but about ourselves and the human ability to use technology to oppression.”

He believes that Ai-Da can pioneer the world of AI, whether producing poetry, artwork or something else, will push the limits of what technology can achieve and allow us to learn even more about ourselves, all through the eyes of a robot.

(Translated text. Check the original in English here)

Reference: CNN Brasil

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