当人们想到人工智能时，经常会想到的图像是充满“终结者”、“我，机器人”、“西部世界”和“银翼杀手”世界的险恶机器人。多年来，小说告诉我们，人工智能经常被用于邪恶而不是善良。
但我们通常不会与 AI 联系在一起的是艺术和诗歌——但这正是 Ai-Da，一个由 Aidan Meller 在英格兰中部的牛津发明的高度逼真的机器人，她花时间创造的东西。艾达是世界上第一个超写实的人形机器人艺术家，周五她公开表演了她用她的算法写的诗歌，以庆祝伟大的意大利诗人但丁。
这场独奏会在牛津大学著名的阿什莫林博物馆举行，作为纪念但丁逝世 700 周年的展览的一部分。艾达的诗是对诗人史诗“神曲”的回应——艾达完全消费了它，让她可以使用她的算法从但丁的语音模式中获取灵感，并使用她自己的数据库的话，创造她自己的作品。
梅勒将艾达的诗描述为“感人至深”，包括以下诗句：
“我们像蒙着眼睛的俘虏一样从我们的诗句中抬起头来，
被差遣去寻求光明；但它从未到来
需要一根针和线
为了完成图片。
观看那些受苦受难的可怜生物，
一只鹰，眼睛被缝上了。”
梅勒说，艾达模仿人类写作的能力“太棒了，如果你读了它，你不会知道它不是人类写的”，并告诉美国有线电视新闻网，周五晚上艾达读她的诗时，“很容易忘记你不是在和一个人打交道。”
“Ai-Da 项目的开发是为了解决关于进一步开发人工智能以模仿人类和人类行为的伦理问题的争论，”梅勒告诉 CNN。 “我们终于明白，技术正在对生活的方方面面产生重大影响，我们正在寻求了解这项技术能做什么，以及它可以教会我们关于自己的什么。”
Meller 说，他和与 Ai-Da 合作的团队在培养她的过程中学到的一件事是，该项目并没有教会他们“她是多么人性化——但它向我们展示了我们作为人类是多么机器人化”。
由于爱达已经学会了如何根据我们的行为模仿人类，梅勒说该项目已经展示了人类的习惯性以及我们如何倾向于重复动作、言语和行为模式——这表明是我们，在事实上，谁是机器人。
“通过爱达和人工智能的使用，我们可以比以往任何时候都更多地了解自己——爱达让我们对自己的模式和习惯有了新的了解，因为我们看到她在模仿他们在我们面前，”梅勒告诉 CNN。
爱达不仅会读会写诗——她也能创作艺术作品，并为但丁展览“大开眼界”创作了一件作品，该展览是为了回应 10 月份在埃及发生的事件，当时埃及人出于对监视和安全的担忧，安全部队拘留了爱达，并希望移除她眼中的摄像头。
梅勒说：“这一事件表明，世界上围绕技术及其进步存在着多少紧张情绪。”
梅勒也意识到对人工智能日益先进的发展以及使用算法操纵人口的潜力的担忧，但他说“技术本身是良性的——那些控制它的人的意图可能是道德和在道德上是有问题的。”
根据梅勒的说法，当谈到对人工智能的未来将带我们走向何方的担忧时，“我们应该最大的恐惧应该是我们自己和人类利用技术进行压迫的能力，而不是人工智能本身。”
Meller 认为 Ai-Da 可以成为 AI 世界的先驱，她创作的作品——无论是诗歌、艺术品还是其他东西——都将突破技术所能实现的界限，让我们了解更多比以往任何时候都更了解我们自己，完全通过机器人的眼睛。
Meet the robot that can write poetry and create artworks
(CNN)When people think of artificial intelligence, the images that often come to mind are of the sinister robots that populate the worlds of "The Terminator," "i, Robot," "Westworld," and "Blade Runner." For many years, fiction has told us that AI is often used for evil rather than for good.
But what we may not usually associate with AI is art and poetry -- yet that's exactly what Ai-Da, a highly realistic robot invented by Aidan Meller in Oxford, central England, spends her time creating. Ai-Da is the world's first ultra-realistic humanoid robot artist, and on Friday she gave a public performance of poetry that she wrote using her algorithms in celebration of the great Italian poet Dante.
The recital took place at the University of Oxford's renowned Ashmolean Museum as part of an exhibition marking the 700th anniversary of Dante's death. Ai-Da's poem was produced as a response to the poet's epic "Divine Comedy" -- which Ai-Da consumed in its entirety, allowing her to then use her algorithms to take inspiration from Dante's speech patterns, and by using her own data bank of words, create her own work.
Ai-Da's poem was described was "deeply emotive" by Meller and includes the following verse:
"We looked up from our verses like blindfolded captives,
Sent out to seek the light; but it never came
A needle and thread would be necessary
For the completion of the picture.
To view the poor creatures, who were in misery,
That of a hawk, eyes sewn shut."
Meller said that Ai-Da's ability to imitate human writing is "so great, if you read it you wouldn't know that it wasn't written by a human" and told CNN that when Ai-Da was reading her poem on Friday evening, "it was easy to forget that you're not dealing with a human being."
"The Ai-Da project was developed to address the debate over the ethics of further developing AI to imitate humans and human behavior," Meller told CNN. "It's finally dawning on us all that technology is having a major impact on all aspects of life and we're seeking to understand just how much this technology can do and what it can teach us about ourselves."
Meller said one key thing he and the team that work with Ai-Da have learned while developing her is that the project hasn't taught them how "human she is -- but it's shown us how robotic we are as humans."
As Ai-Da has learned how to imitate humans based on our behavior, Meller says the project has shown just how habitual human beings are and how we tend to repeat actions, words, and patterns of behavior -- suggesting that it is we, in fact, who are robotic.
"Through Ai-Da and through the use of AI, we can learn more about ourselves than ever before -- Ai-Da allows us to gain a new insight into our own patterns and our own habits, as we see her imitate them right in front of us," Meller told CNN.
Not only can Ai-Da read and write poetry -- she is also capable of creating artworks, too, and made one for the Dante exhibition titled "Eyes Wide Shut" which was crafted in response to an incident in Egypt in October, when Egyptian security forces detained Ai-Da and wanted to remove the cameras in her eyes due to concerns over surveillance and security.
"The incident showed just how much nervousness there is in the world around technology and its advancements," Meller said.
Meller is aware, too, of the concerns over the increasingly advanced development of artificial intelligence and the potential for using algorithms to manipulate populations but he said that "technology on its own is benign -- it's those that control it whose intentions could be morally and ethically questionable."
According to Meller, when it comes to worries about where the future of AI will take us, "the biggest fear we should have should be of ourselves and the human capability to use technology to oppress, not of the AI itself."
Meller thinks that Ai-Da can be a pioneer in the world of AI and that what she produces -- whether it's poetry, artworks or something else -- will push the boundaries of what can be achieved in technology and will allow us to learn more about ourselves than ever before, all through the eyes of a robot.
