Spot robot from Boston Dynamics will draw at an art show

wonderful robot Boston Dynamics Advertisement has been available to various industries for some time to help with tasks such as inspection, mapping and monitoring.

But the talented four-legged robot has also attracted the attention of artist Agnieszka Pilat, who has used Spot to create various works of art.

In Pilate’s latest project, she will train three Spot robots to paint a painting for the National Gallery of Victoria (NVG) in Melbourne, Australia.

The robots will use oil paint sticks on acrylic canvas attached to a wall to create their masterpiece, The Guardian reports. The process will be carried out autonomously by the robots, although they will be pre-programmed with a range of brush strokes to choose from during the creation of the artwork.

The Guardian describes Spots’ surviving paintings as “often childish”, though Pilate, who has sold works to Silicon Valley players in recent years such as telecommunications billionaire Craig McCaw and former Waymo CEO John Krafchik, attributes this to a deliberate programming choice as he sees machines as “little children in human years who know a lot but understand very little.”

The training and painting process for the NVG project will take the robots about four months, and the work is expected to be completed in time for the NVG triennial, which opens in December.

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and its Health Transformation Lab are loaning their own Spot robot to Pilate, and are also doing research to learn more about how people are responding to the introduction of autonomous robots into their premises.

Brad Crammond of RMIT commented, “Art is viewed as a purely human endeavor, testifying to the difference between humanity and other beings.”

He added: “Watching an art-making robot in Melbourne’s main gallery challenges our ideas of what a robotic future might look like.”