ROBOTS have been used for everything from building cars to playing chess, but a new mechanical creation is set to rival us at one of the last preserves of human ingenuity – art.

The world’s first artificial intelligence robot artist is on her way to Oxford, hosting her inaugural exhibition at Oxford University in May.

Named after Ada Lovelace – the 19th century mathematician and pioneer of computer programming – Ai-Da, is the brainchild of gallery owner Aidan Meller, who has a gallery in Oxford’s Turl Street.

She is the first robot capable of drawing people from life using a microchip in her eye and a pencil in her robotic hand. Using AI processes and algorithms Ai-Da’s ability as a robot to draw from sight has never been achieved before without human input.

Ai-Da has been designed and built by Cornish Robotics Company Engineered Arts, which makes robots for communication and entertainment – including a humandoid for the Westworld TV show.

Academics at Oxford University and Goldsmiths are providing Ai-Da with the programming and creative design for her art work, while students at Leeds University are designing and programming her bionic arm.

Ai-Da’s exhibition, Unsecured Futures, will launch on May 9 at Lady Margaret Hall, in Norham Gardens, and St John’s College. It will showcase Ai-Da’s performance art as well as plastic, silver and bronze 2D and 3D works.

Read more: Artist Jeff Koons shines at the Ashmolean Museum

Mr Meller said: “I’m thrilled to launch Ai-Da, the first ultra-realistic AI robot artist.

Oxford Mail:

“She can draw your portrait, and takes part in performance art.

"New technologies are changing the world rapidly, offering us new ways to explore art. Ai-Da is a figurehead of a new art movement, which seeks to engage people to think and talk imaginatively about where we want our future to be going.”