As AI becomes an unstoppable force, it raises some difficult questions about the future role of humans in an increasingly automated world. Initial studies are showing that we can add the most value by focusing on four key areas: critical thinking, problem solving, managing human interactions, and above all else, expressing creativity. In short, our future role involves embracing these last bastions of human exclusivity and becoming more "human." But just last month, AI-generated art arrived on the world auction stage under the auspices of Christie's, proving that artificial intelligence can not only be creative but also produce world class works of art--another profound AI milestone blurring the line between human and machine. Naturally, the news sparked debates about whether the work produced by Paris-based art collective Obvious could really be called art at all. Popular opinion among creatives is that art is a process by which human beings express some idea or emotion, filter it through personal experience and set it against a broader cultural context--suggesting then that what AI generates at the behest of computer scientists is definitely not art, or at all creative.

We're excited to announce the winners of the third Robot Art competition! This year we had 19 teams from all over the world submit over 100 robot-created artworks. Winners were determined based on a combination of public voting (over 2000 people with a Facebook account), judges consisting of working artists, critics, and technologists, and by how well the team met the spirit of the competition – that is, to create something beautiful using a physical brush and robotics and to share what they learned with others. See the previous winners: 2017, 2016. Incorporating machine-learning technology, CloudPainter was able to paint evocative portraits with varying degrees of abstraction.

The Robotart (that's "Robot art") competition aims to combine art and engineering to advance both fields. Vincent van Bot: Of the 100 images submitted to the 2018 Robotart competition, a automaton called CloudPainter rose to the top, with evocative portraits featuring varying degrees of abstraction. One of its winning images (pictured above) was created by a team of neural networks, AI algorithms, and robots. Artistic progress: Robotart's founder, Andrew Conru, told MIT Technology Review that this year's entries have shown refined brushstrokes and composition. "CloudPainter, the winner this year, has been involved all three years and has made the most improvement in his system," he says.