Gaka-chu: a self-employed autonomous robot artist

TL;DR

This paper introduces Gaka-chu, an autonomous robot artist capable of creating art, selling it via blockchain, and autonomously managing its income and expenses over a six-month period, demonstrating economic autonomy in robotics.

Contribution

The paper presents the first implementation of an economically autonomous robot that can produce, sell art, and manage its finances independently using blockchain technology.

Findings

Gaka-chu created and sold four paintings over six months.

The robot autonomously managed its income to buy supplies and repay investors.

The experiment demonstrates the feasibility of economic autonomy in robots.

Abstract

The physical autonomy of robots is well understood both theoretically and practically. By contrast, there is almost no research exploring their potential economic autonomy. In this paper, we present the first economically autonomous robot -- a robot able to produce marketable goods while having full control over the use of its generated income. Gaka-chu ("painter" in Japanese) is a 6-axis robot arm that creates paintings of Japanese characters from an autoselected keyword. By using a blockchain-based smart contract, Gaka-chu can autonomously list a painting it made for sale in an online auction. In this transaction, the robot interacts with the human bidders as a peer not as a tool. Using the blockchain-based smart contract, Gaka-chu can then use its income from selling paintings to replenish its resources by autonomously ordering materials from an online art shop. We built the Gaka-chu prototype with an Ethereum-based smart contract and ran a 6-month long experiment, during which the robot created and sold four paintings, simultaneously using its income to purchase supplies and repay initial investors. In this work, we present the results of the experiments conducted and discuss the implications of economically autonomous robots.