Ada Lovelace Day AI & Art workshop

In March 2023 I was asked to run the AI workshop for the AI & ART exhibition for Ada Lovelace day at Somerset house.

Ada Lovelace is touted to have written the first computer program for Charles Babbages machine, the Analytical Engine. As well as this: a writer, poet, and lover of art (and happens to be the first child of Lord Byron)

I was tasked with creating a workshop for ages 8-80 the encompassed AI and art. A workshop for such a broad age group was no easy task, and took many hours of thought. I had planned on teaching basic p5.js to everyone to create basic shapes and colours, then using Stable Diffusion and Chatgpt to enhance their work.

Then I realised teaching javascript to children and OAPs in 90 minutes was a bad idea, so I decided on a game. It was a word game to start with. Each person wrote a sentence on a piece of paper that used a few prompt words, the paper was then passed to the left. With your new scrap of paper you had to draw a picture of the sentence, then pass it on.

Each team (there were 3: ADA, LOVE, and LACE) performed the following:

def iteration(received_paper):
      if received_paper is drawing:
            new_paper = write_sentence_summarising_drawing(received_paper)
      elif received_paper is sentence:
            new_paper = draw_picture_depicting_sentence(received_paper)
            
        pass_to_left(new_paper)

This went on for several rounds until each sentence was far from the first.

With the the resulting sentence, the teams put into Stable Diffusion and selected an artwork they were happy with.

Then put the sentence into chatGPT with the pre-text: "a p5.js file depeicting the following:"

We then input the p5.js to the pen plotter, and it was drawn out in front of them.

I then asked the teams:

• "Who created the piece?",
• "Who owns the artwork?" ,
• "Which steps were 'creative'?"

The outputted works were displayed in the main gallery on large screens.

Read more here: https://kmi.open.ac.uk/news/article/19824