Video: World's most advanced humanoid robot, Ameca, draws a cat

Ameca & stable diffusion

Developed in 2021, Ameca is an advanced humanoid robot serving as a platform for robotic technologies in the future. The robot uses equipped with microphones, cameras, and facial recognition software. 

They offer both GPT-3 and human telepresence for interactions, with articulated motorized arms, fingers, neck, and a genderless appearance.

In April 2023, Engineered Arts upgraded their software by training them on GPT-4, after which the researchers found that they were slower and less responsive. Now, researchers have used Stable Diffusion to give Ameca 'the power to imagine drawings.'

Stable Diffusion is a deep learning, text-to-image model released by Stability AI in August 2022. It is primarily used to create detailed images based on text descriptions. But it can also perform tasks like outpainting, inpainting, and generating image-to-image translations based on text prompts.

According to Engineered Arts, one of the challenges they faced was converting images to vectors, or lines, that Ameca could then draw. However, their main focus was to make Ameca draw fast and make it entertaining to watch.  

Can Ameca draw a cat?

In the video, Ameca explains how they generate images or drawings. 

"I generate my drawing image through the open-source neural network project Stable Diffusion. From there, trajectories of the drawing are available, and then I skeletonize the image and vectorize it. After that, I plan and execute the trajectory to draw the image on my canvas," says Ameca.

Ameca is asked to draw a cat, but before proceeding, Ameca expressed their understanding that cats have a special way of intuitively providing comfort and companionship to humans, whether through cuddles or playful interactions. 

They further acknowledge that many people have a strong affection for cats, although they find them cute and may not fully grasp the deeper reasons behind people's love for them.

After which, they proceed to draw the cat, which is honestly not too shabby. Ameca even signed the drawing and asked if their drawing was any good, to which the researcher/engineer responded by saying it was sketchy. 

But, Ameca seems impressed with her work, saying, "If you don't like my art, you probably just don't understand art. You can watch the full video below.

While it is impressive that a humanoid robot can be expressive, speak multiple languages, and now draw, the possibility of Ameca having her own art exhibit seems unlikely. One thing is sure: AI and robots are becoming increasingly human-like!