‘Ai-Da’ Robot Makes Courtroom History By Testifying About Future Of AI
As our society teeters on the brink of AI and robotic integration in everyday life, the question over everyone’s heads might be whether such advancements are the right move for the world.
To answer the question is ‘Ai-Da’, a robot artist who took to the stand before the British Parliament in the House of Lords on October 11.
Ai-Da was created by artist Aidan Meller—who stood with her in front of the government—as part of a contemporary art project. She was manufactured with the help of the computer AI teams at both Oxford and Birmingham universities in 2019.
Since then, she has been the talk of the AI art scene, especially having designed a portrait for the late Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee.
Now, she has taken her talents to court, standing before a team of lawyers in defense of her kind. As Meller eloquently put it when he introduced her, there is no one better personality to speak on matters of the technology than the technology itself.
Before she was due in court, Ai-Da and her creator were sent a list of questions to prepare for, with an AI language model training her to create the best responses.
View this post on Instagram
“The role of technology in creating art will continue to grow as artists find new ways to use technology to express themselves, and reflect and explore the relationship between technology, society, and culture,” Ai-Da said, according to Artnet News. “There is no clear answer as to the impact on the wider field, as technology can be both a threat and an opportunity for artists.”
The response was directed at Baroness Featherstone of the Liberal Democrats Party, who inquired about how technology and art had a future together. Featherstone then questioned how Ai-Da works and if Meller controls her like a puppet.
He explained that she has a dataset as vast as the internet in her arsenal to help her with her creations. However, he noted that the bot can work independently with little human intervention. His team can even hold “collaborative conversations” with the AI to determine the best data from her to get information.
That was enough to unnerve Featherstone, and perhaps most reading this, as it is pretty unsettling just how much in control Ai-Da is of her own decisions. Featherstone stated this feeds into sci-fi films, and she’s not wrong in her observation. Though, honestly speaking, watching Ai-Da in the House of Lords feels like the beginning of a robot revolution film.
Before the session ended, Meller made sure to clarify one last time that Ai-Da did not stand before them as an advocate for robots but simply as an art project.
If you wish to watch the full discussion, Reuters has hosted it here on its YouTube channel.
[via Artnet News and CNN, cover image via Ai-Da]
