Science fiction promised us robot butlers, but it seems they rather fancy themselves as artists instead. And who can blame them? On November 7, a painting of the mathematician Alan Turing by an AI-powered robot called Ai-Da sold at auction for a cool $1,084,000 (around £865,000). That's a more appealing lifestyle than having to sprint around a Boston Dynamics assault course.
The Sotheby's auction house said Ai-Da is "the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork sold at auction." It probably also set the record the most online grumbling about a painting, which is understandable – after all, shouldn't robots be sweeping up and making the tea, while we artfully dab at the canvases?
