Lifeboat Foundation

In 1971, artist Harold Cohen (1928 – 2016) became a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. There, he created a computer program called Aaron to answer the question, “What are the minimum conditions under which a set of marks functions as an image?”

The first iteration of Aaron generated abstract drawings. Later iterations in the 1980s drew rocks, plants, people, and other animals. Cohen’s program was one of the first examples of how AI could be used in creative fields like art.

In a paper titled “How to Make a Drawing,” which Cohen submitted to the National Bureau of Standards in 1982, he predicted that advancements in AI would result in a “cultural shock-wave of unprecedented proportions.”