What happens when AI Attempts to Make Art…

I often ponder to myself at times “What are people thinking when they created this?”

We have seen a Shiv Integer bot, for which its purpose in life is to create bizarre objects rendered for 3D Printers.

This automated bot has been living on 3D printer project site “Thingiverse.” Its main purpose: to post objects that are bonded together from dozens of other 3D printable objects that are listed on the site. The results are classified as art, while others refer to it as spam. This really depends upon your perspective.

Just in recent months, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez and Julien Deswaef revealed themselves as the humans behind the Shiv Integer bot. They showcased the results of their bot’s work during an even known as The Art of Bots London’s Somerset House.

Given the terminology, Shiv Integer’s work is fascinating and rather amusing to stare at. When you first glance at the “art,” you can easily describe it as a mutant gadget, or something of that nature, and even ponder “How is that printable?” Not only does this bot take a recognizable item from a 3D printable object and merge it with another, it also provides a random name for that printable object as well. Such names include “Quick Cat Near a Jaw” and “Disc on top of an E-Juice golf” or “Customizable Damage Mask.”

This bot is also known to post several times per day, and to top it all off, in the About section, the bot even generates the credits of other users in which the original object had a purpose. However, this bot will only work on objects that have already been CC for licensing and remixing.

The vast majority of Thingiverse users took this bot in stride, or where just mildly confused by the concept.

“The crap is going on here? LOL” responded a typical user during a response to a Mangled looking object the bot names “Master by a Dual Adapter.”  However, in early March, just after the Shiv Integer has had time to be active, it flooded the website with completely randomly generated objects.

The 3D Printable objects by this bot have come under very harsh scrutiny. A user even posted that the Shi Integer is basically nothing more than a simple spam bot:

“The spammy part is in posting so many individual, uniformly similar projects in such a short time span. This hijacks the “front page” with your stuff, and pushes other people’s stuff faster and farther down the pages… The practice is unfair to other up-loaders who want as much front page (top pages) exposure as possible. And it annoys readers who want to see the variety of new ideas that come up daily, without being distracted by your stuff…The “remix” sends people email.”

Shiv Integer’s “Retractable Mount House” has also witnessed the arguing of people – debating if art produced by a robot is really art.

Frankvdh stated “I doubt that there’s even a person behind this…just a mindless robot that randomly picks bits of other people’s work and stick it together.” DJA also added “Art is a creation by someone, and this is not art, it is a computer generated assembly of other people’s things in no order or fashion. Calling it art is to put the thought of art, that is, someone’s creativity, to shame. No, this is a pure spambot created assembly, made from a spambot script.”

Sources: Thingiverse, Arstechnica, Abandon Normal Devices.

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