I read Carnegie Melon’s AI-Powered FRIDA Robot Collaborates with Humans to create AI Art by Aaron Auperlee. Frida is the name of the robot which stands for Frameworks and Robotics Initiative for Developing Arts. Frida looks like a big red robotic arm and has a paintbrush taped to her hand-like part. This robot is considered a system that an artist can collaborate with but not an artist herself. Through a computer program, a prompt is given to Frida to paint. Prompts can be a written description, a photo to render, a style inspired by a famous artist, a specified palette, or even a song. A color palette is chosen, mixed by a human on the robotics team and put out in front of Frida to use. The robot dips into the paint and begins by making strokes. The strokes are observed by her and analyzed in the computer system to learn from and to make future strokes through machine learning. The way this works is similar to Open AI systems like ChatGPT. Something that makes Frida stand apart from other robots is her lack of precision and the way she incorporates mistake strokes into the final piece. This type of collaboration fascinates me because there can be many different understandings of this kind of art made by humans and non-human. If Frida is considered a tool by her robotics team, that means she is merely an extension of the human hand. But part of the imprecision and allowing the robot to be the one that paints, also leaves the touch of the human hand out of the art projects. As a painter and becoming very interested in Digital Art, I would definitely like to collaborate with Frida on a painting but I think I would also consider making strokes with my hand on the painting as well.
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