Harold Cohen Pioneers AI Art with AARON

AARON, the autonomous drawing machine Cohen named at Stanford in 1973, pioneered the use of AI to create art. With his seminal 1973 essay “Parallel to Perception: Some Notes on the Problem of Machine-Generated Art,” Harold Cohen articulated his efforts to develop “autonomous art-making behavior” that was inventive and could “conjure meaning.” Cohen differentiated this “autonomous art-making” from computer art, which he did not highly regard, claiming that “'computer art' can barely claim consideration as art at all.” Cohen’s collaboration with AARON as a human-machine collaboration lasted 40 years and demonstrated a machine’s ability to make creative choices. His ideas and concepts for these coming decades can be found in this paper. Image is copyrighted by The Artist and courtesy of The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection.