Harold Cohen (b. 1928) studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He subsequently moved to the United States and from 1973-1975 he worked at the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University, where he developed the AARON computer program. Besides instructions on form and colour the program also takes into account what AARON has previously drawn, thus making it highly complex. Over the years AARON was further developed by the artist ('taught by the artist'), making it more and more a complex system. AARON is said to be the first robot in human history to create art, the world's first pure A.I. (artificial intelligence) artist. AARON cannot learn new techniques or imagery on its own - this must be hand-coded by Harold Cohen - but it is capable of producing a practically infinite output of distinct images in its own style.
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Many of the works created by AARON are signed by Harold Cohen. In this case, the "Aaron" signature has been created by the computer program itself.
