AI robot 'drills into biggest concerns of our time'

Ai-Da has recently presented her portrait of King Charles III at the United Nations' AI for Good Global Summit

The creator of the first ultra-realistic robot artist has said that working with a robot has evoked "lots of questions about the relationship we have with ourselves".

The artificial intelligence (AI) robot Ai-Da has been devised in Oxford by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art, and built in the UK by Engineered Arts.

She has been specifically designed as a humanoid to be able to do art and has recently unveiled a portrait of King Charles III.

Mr Meller said Ai-Da and her artwork "drills into some of the biggest concerns and thoughts of our time".

Buckingham Palace has authorized permission for Ai-Da's artwork to be showcased

Ai-Da has cameras in her eyes, which she uses to take images.

Then, thanks to AI algorithms, she is able to interrogate the image which goes through to her arm to be converted into real-time coordinates - that enables her to hold a paintbrush to paint and draw.

"You can meet her, you can talk to her using her language model and she's then able to paint and draw you from sight," Mr Meller said.

"People have got very much 1950s robots in their head - the reality is that actually they're very engaging.

"It's not until you look a robot in the eye and they say your name that the reality of this new sci-fi world that we are now currently in really takes hold."

Mr Meller said they had felt the King "was a really good subject", with the "extraordinary strides" of technology and the questions around our relationship to the environment

Ai-Da has been asked to produce and showcase work at the United Nations' AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 2024, she did a triptych of Enigma code-breaking mathematician Alan Turing, which was sold for more than £1m at an auction.

This year, she turned her focus onto King Charles III.

"With extraordinary strides that are taking place in technology and again, always questioning our relationship to the environment, we felt that King Charles was a really good subject," Mr Meller said.

He said that even though Ai-Da had not met the King, Buckingham Palace had authorized permission for the artwork to be showcased.

When asked how she chooses her subjects, Mr Meller said: "Uncannily, and rather nerve-wrackingly, we just ask her".

"Ai-Da is connected to the internet [and] she's able to speak at length about different people because she has a great deal of data to hand.

"It was through those conversations that the artwork is then able to be done."

Ai-Da also painted a picture King Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth II in 2023.

Mr Meller said the idea behind Ai-Da was to have technology that could not only create but also "to critique and comment on itself"

Mr Meller said the biggest realisation from the six years working with Ai-Da was "not so much about how human she is but actually how robotic we are".

"Working with a robot is throwing up lots of questions about the relationship we have actually with ourselves," he said.

"We hope that Ai-Da's artwork is able to be a provocation to have that discussion."