Day I met Ai-Da.. the world's 1st robot artist

Discussion over love, God and F meaning of life ahead of show

- SARA WALLIS

As I approach Ai-Da, she carefully looks me up and down and there's a whirring noise as her blinking eyes lock on to me.

Ai-Da is the world's first ultra-realistic artist robot and meeting her is a little bit creepy. Cameras in her eyes track me as I speak, and she has incredibly lifelike skin and hair, and robotic arms that she uses to paint and draw.

She's also much taller than me and could definitely take me in a fight.

Ai-Da may not have emotions but she is prepared to talk about everything from love, God and the meaning of life to celebrities and her favourite joke.

She has a slightly posh English accent and speaks clearly, albeit with a robotic sing-song quality.

She can paint an impressive watercolour and write a book. The only problem is - and it's just a little thing could she eventually wipe out humanity? Ai-Da is extremely polite, asking me how I am and thanking me for coming to meet her, even scanning my copy of the Daily Mirror.

But I'm a child of the 90s. I've seen The Terminator and I am wary.

Al chiefs have predicted that robots could mean the death of humanity.

Some of the biggest names in AI development signed a statement highlighting the risks, fearing that the tech could be "extremely harmful" in war.

But is this true? Meta chief AI scientist Prof Yann LeCun thinks the problem has been "ridiculously overblown".

Who better to ask than an actual robot? And while I could have stayed at home and asked Alexa, Ai-Da is much more sophisticated.

Made with a fusion of electronic, AI and human inputs, she is a friendly cyborg artist designed to make us think.

Small talk out of the way, I ask her directly if we are in trouble from AI.