FRIDA, the robot powered by artificial intelligence that makes works of art with a brush

Researchers at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, United States, developed a robotic arm with a brush that, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), can help human artists in works of art.

This robot was called FRIDAwhich clearly owes its name to Frida Kahlo, but its initials really mean Framework and Robotics Initiative for Developing Artswhich in Spanish means Framework and Robotics Initiative for the Development of the Arts).

According to a report published on the website of Europe Pressthe users can address FRIDA by entering a text descriptionby submitting other artwork to inspire your style or by uploading a photograph and asking him to paint a representation of it.

The experts are also experimenting with other inputs such as audio. They put on ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and asked FRIDA to paint it.

What do the scientists think?

Peter Schaldenbrand, a PhD student who is part of the team that has developed the robot to explore the limits of Artificial Intelligence and creativity, said: “FRIDA is a robotic painting system, but he is not an artist”.

“FRIDA does not generate the ideas to communicate. FRIDA is a system with which an artist could collaborate. The artist can specify high level goals for FRIDA and then FRIDA can execute them”, he added.

How does it work? Once the human FRIDA user has specified a high-level concept of the box they want to create, the robot uses machine learning to create its simulation and develop a plan to make a painting that meets the user’s goals.

FRIDA displays a color palette on a computer screen for a human to mix and provide to the robot. The robot uses AI models similar to tools like OpenAI and DALL-E 2 ChatGPTwhich generate text or an image, respectively, in response to the prompt.

As a result, her paintings are impressive but lack precision, and if she makes a mistake, FRIDA touches it up with a smear of paint.