Ai-Da: Portrait of the Robot

Fascinating small exhibition at the Design Museum on the art robot Ai-Da.

Named after Ada Lovelace, the computer pioneer, Ai-Da can sketch faces and talk to her models. I have read quite a bit about this phenomena but sadly Ai-Da wasn’t in the show. It did however explain how cameras in her eyes use facial recognition to scan faces then enable a robotic arm to draw in a fragmentary style. It then went explained how she reaction with people based on AI learned language and gestures.

There was another section on how worked with her to design a font based on her discussions with a designer and her copying of the Arial font. I’ve not sure I fully understand but it seemed very clever.

Closes 29 August 2021

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