One of them is none other than Ai-Da, a humanoid robot who is paying tribute to the father of the Italian language by performing several poems written by artificial intelligence.
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has invited Ai-Da to perform some of her poems as part of the exhibition “Dante: The Invention of Celebrity,” which traces the Italian artist’s influence through the centuries.
Ai-Da wrote the works after reading “The Divine Comedy” in its entirety.
Algorithms allowed her to analyse the structure of this 16th-century epic poem, which served as inspiration for her own poems.
According to Ai-Da designer Aidan Meller, these writings were all generated by artificial intelligence, with very little human correction.
“She can give us 20,000 words in 10 seconds, and if we need to get her to say something short and snappy, we would pick it out from what she’s done. But it is not us writing,” he explained to The Guardian.
Using AI to express the complex nature of humanity
While some may question the quality of Ai-Da’s poems, Aidan Meller says they should not be compared with those written by human poets.
“It is not a question of competition, but rather a question of discussion and potential action,” he told the British newspaper.
“All of us should be concerned about widespread use of AI language models on the internet, and how that will affect language, and crucially, meaning making, in the future.”
By performing Friday, November 26 at the Ashmolean Museum, Ai-Da becomes the first robot in history to publicly read poems written by artificial intelligence.
But she’s not the only one using this technology to try their hand at the art form.
Programmers and artificial intelligence experts have collaborated with the Poetry Society, the Scottish Poetry Library and the Poetry Archive to design an ever-changing collective message generated by AI and contributions from visitors to the World Expo in Dubai.
This interactive installation, titled “Collective Message,” is currently projected on the façade of the UK Pavilion.
It was inspired by a project of the late scientist Stephen Hawking, who asked what the collective message of humanity might be if it came into contact with another species.
As a result, the goal of “Collective Message” is to “explore whether a computer program can express the complex nature of humanity through verse.” Ai-Da and her creator, at least, seem optimistic on that front.