Robots are slowly but surely taking all of our jobs. Even jobs that we thought were safe – like being an artist. e-David is a robotic painter developed by the University of Konstanz in Germany. It takes photographs, then uses its software to develop a unique set of brush strokes to make a one-of-a-kind painting of the subject. There’s another job gone.

It creates using five different brushes and a palette of 24 paint colors. It can also change its painting style on the fly, making adjustments to future brush strokes by observing the results of those it has already made. e-David even signs its work with a reverse-written signature, which is a nice artistic touch.

The team built the robot painter to learn more about the techniques human artists use. They want to boil painting techniques down to their basics by creating algorithms that can mimic them.

Sure, e-David paints a great painting, but can it cut it’s own ear off like Van Gogh? Nope. No passion. No crazy. No heart. How is that art again?

[via Geekosystem]