The ominous robots that populate the realms of "The Terminator," I Robot," "Westworld," and "Blade Runner" typically spring to mind when people think of artificial intelligence. For many years, science fiction has informed us that artificial intelligence is frequently employed for evil rather than good. Eventhough we don't normally equate AI with art or poetry, Ai-Da, a highly lifelike robot created by Aidan Meller in Oxford, Central England, spends her time doing just that. On Nov 26, Ai-Da, the world's first ultra-realistic humanoid robot artist, staged lyrics created using her algorithms in honor of Dante, the legendary Italian poet.
The performance took place as part of an exhibition commemorating the 700th anniversary of Dante's death at the University of Oxford's famed Ashmolean Museum. Ai-poetry Da's was inspired by Dante's epic "Divine Comedy," which she read in its entirety, allowing her to use her algorithms to take inspiration from Dante's speech patterns and create her own work utilizing her own data bank of words.