As artists integrate AI and robotics into their creative practices, they are redefining how we perceive machines, not just as tools, but as collaborators, provocateurs and emotional interfaces. Their work offers business leaders valuable insights into designing more meaningful, human-centred interactions with intelligent systems.
The meeting point of artificial intelligence, robotics and art is often seen as a fringe experiment, a curiosity rather than a field with consequence. Yet, as artists begin to explore the expressive capacities of robots, what emerges is not only a new aesthetic vocabulary but a deeper understanding of human-machine interaction that may have profound implications for how executives design, deploy and relate to intelligent systems. At this year’s NVIDIA GTC, five artists working at the forefront of AI and robotics shared how their practices shape not only the art world but the way we think about the role of machines in society.
From command and control to emotional dialogue
For many industries, robots are built around ideas of control, productivity, and precision. Yet what if robots were instead designed to surprise, collaborate, or even comfort? This was the underlying question animating the work of artist and engineer Catie Cuan. With a professional dance and mechanical engineering background, her practice centres on transforming how people relate to robots by exploring their potential for emotional resonance and aesthetic experience.
At the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Cuan is currently leading a project called Manifold, a nine-foot mobile robotic hand designed to interact with over 200,000 museum visitors using AI. The goal is not to maximise efficiency but to explore two fundamental human questions: what does it feel like to be held, and what does it feel like to be cared for?
“We honestly have no idea how people will interact with the robot,” Cuan says. “It is radically non-deterministic. And that is the point. The robot has autonomy; it interprets its surroundings and makes decisions. The only difference is that our aim is not functional output but aesthetic experience. That is what makes it performance art rather than automation.”
Emanuel Gollob, artist and researcher at the University of Arts Linz, echoed this emphasis on openness, ambiguity and real-time responsiveness. His installations use custom-trained machine learning models to adapt to bodily posture, vibrations and force feedback, with no predefined outputs or narratives. “I want the audience to question what they are seeing and feeling rather than consuming a polished narrative,” he says. “That ambiguity is what creates space for discussion, for cross-disciplinary engagement. It is not about robots being correct or efficient; it is about exploring new ways of relating, thinking, and being.”
Machines as co-creators, not just tools
Across the panel, the idea of AI and robotics as static tools was repeatedly challenged. For artist Alexander Reben, early experiments with robotic filmmaking and sculpting revealed the shifting nature of these technologies. “AI is not exactly a tool, nor a collaborator, nor just a medium,” he explains. “It is a blend of all of them, but it evolves. It always begins as a tool and grows into something more complex.”
Reben’s work has included transforming AI-generated prompts into marble sculptures using NeRF-based 3D extraction and robotic arms and developing fully automated pipelines that translate large language model outputs into sculptural forms. This closed loop between software and hardware opens up a new creative production model: machines do not simply assist human intent but become intermediaries between abstract thought and tangible results.
Crucially, these systems introduce unpredictability. In Reben’s view, that is not a flaw but a feature. “We are bringing digital instructions into the physical world,” he continues. “That introduces unpredictability, errors, and new connections. Things behave slightly unexpectedly, and that is where interesting possibilities emerge.”
Gollob takes a similarly exploratory approach. Rather than relying on pre-trained models with embedded assumptions, he builds constrained environments where machine learning systems evolve from real-time data. “I want to be surprised,” he adds. “The technology enables me to ask questions rather than confirm hypotheses. That element of surprise is what makes it exciting.”
Real-time data as creative input
While others explore physical choreography and ambiguity, artist Andrew Zolty – known professionally as BREAKFAST – brings the language of kinetic sculpture into dialogue with environmental and social datasets. His studio’s latest creation, The Pearl, is a monumental sculpture of 3,000 kinetic tiles onboard Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas. It responds continuously to real-time Caribbean weather data – wind, rain, and tide – turning oceanic rhythms into visual motion.
“For me, real-time data is the muse,” Zolty says. “I am always hunting for some data source that offers something poetic or unexpected, whether solar flares erupting on the sun’s surface or tides shifting on the other side of the planet. To stand in front of a sculpture that is reacting to something happening in real-time; that is what excites me.”
The increasing presence of AI in this process is shifting Zolty’s workflow. He now uses AI as a sounding board without a former creative partner. “Surprisingly, AI has started filling that gap,” he explains. “I find myself having these generative dialogues with it that genuinely move things forward. It is strange but very effective.”
Zolty’s work also raises questions of durability and material culture. In contrast to the disposability of modern electronics, his studio approaches sculpture with the mindset of aerospace engineering. “We build things as if they were satellites, built to last, to survive, to be repaired. It takes more effort, but it is possible. If we care about the future of robotics, we need to build things that endure.”
Challenging cultural assumptions about robots
Perhaps these artists’ most provocative contributions lie not in the machines themselves but in the ways they subvert dominant narratives about technology. From Asimov’s autonomous androids to corporate visions of robotic productivity, public imagination around robots has long oscillated between efficiency and threat.
Cuan sees this duality as reductive. “Most narratives boil down to two tropes: robots that will make us hyper-productive or robots that will kill us,” she notes. “Either they will take all our jobs and let us relax or wipe us out. Both of those narratives are tedious. They are narrow, simplistic, and frankly, boring. What excites me is imagining alternatives.”
By staging performances in which robots dance, create music, or induce meditative states, these artists challenge the very foundations of how machines are defined and deployed. For instance, Gollob’s piece Doing Nothing with AI uses a robot arm to prompt a musician into a default mode brain state associated with daydreaming, memory and empathy. In contrast, the robot itself generates stimuli to support that process. The result is an interaction that invites stillness rather than action, disruption rather than resolution.
“My work invites ambiguous feelings rather than giving clear answers, sparking dialogue across disciplines,” he says. “The key point is that human-robot interaction can be much more than command and control. It can create a space of fruitful friction, where technology’s embedded assumptions – productivity, mind-body dualism, control – can be challenged.”
Rethinking the future of AI deployment
For executives considering the deployment of AI and robotics, these projects offer more than artistic insight. They provide experimental models for human-machine engagement that resist oversimplification. Instead of focusing solely on outputs or optimisations, they invite questions about effect, autonomy, durability and meaning.
“Art can help us imagine possible futures, and sometimes absurd ones,” Reben observes. “Many of the things that actually happen end up looking absurd in hindsight. Art is one of the few places where we can experiment with that. It is a safe space to visualise strange or speculative futures and test emotional responses.”
This capacity to prototype alternate relationships with technology may prove essential as robotics enters more domains of human life, from healthcare to retail, manufacturing to education. Whether through kinetic sculptures, collaborative performances, or AI-assisted fabrication, these artists are not just creating new aesthetic forms. They are designing new interfaces between people and machines.
As Cuan notes, “When I work with robots, I feel connected to that lineage. It is not just about using AI as a tool in the narrow sense. It is about participating in something very ancient that speaks to what it means to be human. Dancing with robots is a natural progression of our relationship with technology.”
The lesson for business leaders is clear. AI is not a fixed entity, nor is it just another upgrade to existing systems. When integrated with creativity, ambiguity, and open-ended interaction, it becomes a vehicle for rethinking not only what machines can do but also what humans can become alongside them.
