Inside the Studio With an AI-Guided Painting Robot

To help illustrate our cover story on how the AI arms race is changing the world, we reached out to award-winning AI artist Pindar Van Arman, who uses artificial intelligence to create his art. Van Arman, who built his first "painting robot" 15 years ago, uses deep learning neural networks, artificial intelligence, feedback loops, and computational creativity to guide his newer robots. As a result, the robots end up making a surprising number of independent aesthetic decisions in the course of painting each piece--putting a different spin on the idea of "generative" AI: artificial intelligence that doesn't just compute, but also creates. "My machines have grown beyond being simple assistants and are now effectively augmenting my own creativity, as well as having creativity of their own," says Van Arman. "They have become a generative AI art system so sophisticated that it has forced me to consider the possibility that all art is generative."