At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos in 2020, the WEF claimed that robots and AI will never be able to perform tasks that require creativity, the ability to come up with new ideas, and to perform collective intelligence management. For this reason, it was a common belief that even though AIs might be taking over more than 40% of jobs in the next few decades, creating art, music, and stories will remain as human work.

However, is this claim still relevant?  An ultra-realistic humanoid robot named Ai-Da, claims to be the first robot to create artwork. The robot draws in a very similar way an artist makes art. First, the camera in her eye captures the image in front of her, which is processed by a series of algorithms. Instructions are sent by the algorithm to her arms and hand then move to draw lines and shapes. 
 

Aidan Meller, the creator of Ai-Da, spoke to The National on whether she was expressing creativity; “She is making the decisions about the nature of the work that she does within the algorithm. The decisions are made by her” If creativity is defined by the ability to create something from scratch, then this AI is being creative. However, some people argue otherwise. Rozina Vavesti, associate professor and department chair of Digital Art and Design at the New York Institute of Technology, told Lifewire, “... it’s just mimicking and spitting our media elements based on fixed chemical training … and these AI art generators will always require human input”

The value of her art is an entirely different matter. The creators of Ai-Da argue, “The role and definition of art changes over time. Ai-Da’s work is art because it reflects the enormous integration of technology today” On the other hand, many art lovers are still finding it difficult to find real meaning in AI art, since it does not reflect any of the artist’s intention or ideologies. 

To those who are afraid that robot artists will replace the job of human artists, Meller states, “It is not a question of competition, but rather a question of discussion and potential action” He suggests artists working in every creative field engage in AI technology actively.

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