AI robot shows creative side with Chinese ink art

The latest Chinese ink artwork created by an artificial intelligence robot is on display in London.

Made by Hong Kong artist and inventor Victor Wong, the robot artist, which is named Gemini, has an "arm" that dips its brush into ink and water before sweeping across xuan paper to create Chinese shuimo artwork.

The AI features random algorithms that mean Wong does not know how the paintings the robot creates will turn out. Each landscape painting can take around 60 hours to create.

Wong told China Daily he has been interested in traditional art since he was young and, with his background in computer graphics and special effects, he decided to bring technology and ink art together.

It took Wong around three years to build and program Gemini, which was then trained in mastering simple brush strokes. Wong also programmed the robot to develop its own recognizable style, rather than to simply copy the work of masters.

"I started teaching Gemini the fundamentals of the brush. Such as how to use the brush, the ink, and water on paper and using the robot arm," Wong said. "I asked Gemini to first create his own landscape in his AI mind, and then find an angle, because it is 3D, so then he's traveling inside his mind and picking up an angle, and draw that angle using the ink paint."