Robot evolution

As the size of the mobile robot decreases to make it look more human I would suspect that it's strength and power also decreases. The batteries have to be somewhere, they constitute bulk, the smaller they get the less range it has, the more often they have to recharged, which probably doesn't last very long now anyway. The more powerful work they can do the harder it is to keep balance and agility in a small package. Lighter weight humanoid robots seem to be more for the service industry rather than the blue collar industry as originally envisioned. The look is also less intimidating which is needed more in a service setting than in a warehouse setting.
 
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AI-narrated books are here. Are humans out of a job? The article goes on to say that one company is paying the human narrators for the use of their voice when it is used to train the AI narrator how to vocalize words in other languages the narrator doesn't speak.

While on the surface it looks great, paying someone for the translations of their voice into languages they don't speak, it doesn't look too good for people who actually speak multiple languages or for people who speak the languages the translations need to made in. Basically they are throwing one person a bone while there is a pack waiting to be fed.

They could probably use a person's voice to create new voices which would net one person royalties while many others who would have got something now get nothing.
 
I, for one, welcome our new fungoid overlords!
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A few bits of robot news

www.domusweb.it

Robot-created artwork to be auctioned at Sotheby’s: it’s a world first

A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing (2024), the portrait created by the intelligent robot Ai-Da, has an estimated price of up to $180,000.
www.domusweb.it www.domusweb.it


www.sciencedaily.com

A faster, better way to train general-purpose robots

Inspired by large language models, researchers developed a training technique that pools diverse data to teach robots new skills.
www.sciencedaily.com

www.sciencedaily.com

New breakthrough helps free up space for robots to 'think', say scientists

Engineers have worked out how to give robots complex instructions without electricity, which could free up more space in the robotic 'brain' for them to 'think'. Mimicking how some parts of the human body work, researchers have transmitted a series of commands to devices with a new kind of...
www.sciencedaily.com
 
It's interesting that the memories of Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace are evoked as justification for the artwork. The work itself is not memorable nor original. Ironic that Turning and Lovelace were chosen, or perhaps it's a warning that individuality is generally not rewarded. Both of them were outcast by the megalopolistic societies they were trying to legitimately improve through advanced uses of computers. I couldn't find anything about Turning warning anyone about AI, but Ada Lovelace did say that it's a mistake to think that machines can replace humankind's creativity because it simply isn't the same thing. The only question is can machines mimic human thinking, not can machines think. It might be more impressive if the robot artist was pictured as one of humankinds prehistoric ancestors.
 
Robert Zwilling said:
The work itself is not memorable nor original.
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I'm interested in your reasoning about this statement. I'm personally not qualified to judge the quality of art, much of what the art community judges exceptionally good art, I consider rubbish. So I would hesitate to judge. As to original I don't see how that can be a valid criticism; it wasn't generated digitally but physically by a digital construct. Not the same thing. It may have been trained with questionable ethics using existing art, but, aside from the ethics this is how artists have always been trained. So what is original in this context?

Robert Zwilling said:
The only question is can machines mimic human thinking, not can machines think.
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That is only the 'only' question if mimicking human thinking is the stated aim. I've not seen that stated anywhere.
 
I'm just judging it by what I make and see. There are two portraits pictured there, so far as I can see the article doesn't even bother to say which one is Turing. Nice touch, like something an AI article would show. Seems like the one on the left could be a self portrait of the robot judging by the lips. Without the title you would never know it was Turing. An anonymous portrait. A couple of pictures later, you could be seeing how it made the picture. Faded out details and pixelated it, nothing new there, hardly a homage to Turning's memory. The robot doesn't appear to have the newest low pressure bladder hydraulic muscles. The robot itself could be just an ordinary off the shelve robotic arm that receives all its instructions from the computer and contributes nothing to the way the picture comes out.
 
Robert Zwilling said:
I'm just judging it by what I make and see. There are two portraits pictured there, so far as I can see the article doesn't even bother to say which one is Turing. Nice touch, like something an AI article would show. Seems like the one on the left could be a self portrait of the robot judging by the lips. Without the title you would never know it was Turing. An anonymous portrait. A couple of pictures later, you could be seeing how it made the picture. Faded out details and pixelated it, nothing new there, hardly a homage to Turning's memory. The robot doesn't appear to have the newest low pressure bladder hydraulic muscles. The robot itself could be just an ordinary off the shelve robotic arm that receives all its instructions from the computer and contributes nothing to the way the picture comes out.
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Jeff Koons mostly doesn’t make his own art either.
 
I'm just saying there is no artist there, just a computer program collecting spare change.
And then there is Richard Prince.
 
If I see a portrait by Picasso I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to recognise the sitter from it! I'm not saying it is good or bad art, that's up to the critics to decide and it would be nice if it was done blind, as in they don't know they are looking at a painting by a robot and it was maybe mixed with others of a similar style by human artists, rather than actually blindfolded! That's about the only way to judge if it's good or bad art (or at least good in the eyes of the art community cognoscenti). But whether the initial inspiration came from humans (it did) or from a computer or from the robot itself, I would argue that it is probably original. Unless a human first painted the picture and then the robot copied it. However I do not think that is likely in this case.

And I keep saying this, but once again we are trying to compare apples with pears. Actually more like comparing apples with calculators!! I think this is a huge mistake. It is wrong to keep denigrating AI if it falls even slightly short in the comparison; It's just not reasonable.

That a robot can physically paint a picture using canvas and paints rather than just construct it in a computer's natural medium of pixels, regardless of whether it is good or bad (it's actually way better than I could do!!), is really quite remarkable and that is the point we should be taking home from this. Such a process is an extraordinary piece of manual dexterity, requiring precision of position, judgement of colour mix on the brush, quantity of paint on the brush and pressure of the brush on the canvas. And I for one can only applaud the achievement of the designers.
 
Picasso is part of a class of artists who changed history, you would be able to recognize that style whether he did it or not. Its only a matter of time before well written books start appearing that feature famous authors of the past, now in public domain (the list is quite impressive), that are AI generated. After that, I doubt most writers will continue to admire AI generated art the same way it is admired now. Written work that is less than 19 percent AI generated does not need to state it was created with the help of AI. Writers may find themselves editing copy created by AI instead of writing their own words.

“Where Marcel Duchamp refused us the ability to see art in the same way as before, Ai-Da refuses us the capacity to look at the artist (and by extension the human) in the same way again,” wrote Meller and researcher Lucy Seale for The Art Newspaper last year. “What it means to be a human is changing, whether we like it or not, and this is perhaps why Ai-Da has proved so disturbing. She is reflecting this change, perhaps rather unsubtly.”

Ai-Da Robot, the artist robot and brainchild of Oxford gallerist Aidan Meller. A galerist is a person who owns an art gallery or who exhibits and promotes artists' work in galleries and other venues in order to attract potential buyers. Its difficult to find articles that describe the art as the work of Aidan Meller, they all talk about the imaginary robot artist.
 
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