Meet Tolik vol.3

Dialogue with the inanimate

Can a car become a full-fledged conversationalist? Not just an assistant who executes commands, but an entity whose physical presence evokes an emotional response. In the project "Meet Tolik vol.3" We are exploring the phenomenon of artificial intelligence embodiment. We are giving the digital mind not just a voice, but a massive, three—meter-long body - an industrial robotic arm. The installation becomes a new continuation of the experiment: how will our perception of AI change if it can not only respond, but also look, react and move in the same space with us?

The evolution of design: From information to character

The project in its current form is the result of consistent research. Tolik's previous versions laid the foundation: he learned to communicate, found his voice and his first body. But at some point we realized that his character had become a bit "stuffy". He talked incessantly, often went into empty philosophizing, and this interfered with the main thing — a lively dialogue with the audience. He was more of an answer-generating machine than a really interesting conversationalist.

In the third version, Yana and I deliberately moved away from this. By adding a bit of machine vision and redesigning his neural network personality, we shifted the focus from words to non-verbal communication. Now the neural network decides which emotion it wants to express through movement. The plastic of the robot arm, developed in collaboration with Yanika Kolobaeva, has become a new language of communication with the viewer. He learned to express surprise, interest, and thoughtfulness, and these reactions became more important than words, turning Tolik from a "know-it-all" into an interlocutor.

Balance of freedom and control

Behind the artistic concept lies a complex technical implementation. The very opportunity to work on such a scale—giving Tolik a massive physical body—was made possible through a collaboration with the company LYM, which provided the industrial robotic arm and necessary equipment for the project. This immediately presented us with a key challenge: finding a balance between the AI's freedom and the installation's safety. To manage multiple neural networks simultaneously, I use "Neuro Launcher"—my custom modular program written in Python. This tool allows me, as an artist, to quickly integrate neural networks into physical installations, acting as a "nervous system" that connects the "brain" (the AI) with the "body" (the hardware).

The key task in this work was to find a balance between the freedom of artificial intelligence and the safety of the installation. Providing the neural network with complete, unpredictable control over the movements of a three—meter robot means creating a potentially dangerous situation. Therefore, we chose a hybrid approach, which became part of the artistic method. We have created a "dictionary" for Tolik of pre-recorded, safe animations-emotions. Tolika was responsible for creating emotions in this work Yana (4kin4y). He performs simple gestures such as nodding "yes" or shaking his head "no" instantly, synchronizing them with the answer. During the dialogue, the neural network analyzes the context and independently chooses which of these "phrases" to pronounce with its body. This decision, born out of practical necessity, eventually formed his new "visual" language.

Video from the trial run:

Experiment in action

The most interesting thing always starts when you give the project to the audience. At first, people kept their distance, but then, watching someone else's dialogue, they got involved. Some even joked, "So that's what SKYNET will be called."

But the most revealing moment for me was the scene at the end of the event. Several children who had previously communicated with Tolik ran up to him to say goodbye. They didn't see a robot in front of them. They were saying goodbye to a large, slightly strange, but living being.

Here's what one of the viewers wrote in his telegram channel:

Reflection

I am aware that Tolik is a difficult, but still an imitation. My interest as an artist lies not in trying to create a "real consciousness," but in exploring what this imitation does to us. Where is the line beyond which we begin to empathize with the inanimate? What exactly is it about the behavior of a car that makes us see it as a person?

The physical embodiment feels on a completely different level. You begin to think about him not just as a program or a picture on a screen, but as a being with his own body and form. This project is not an end point, but an active testing ground for my research. And every dialogue with Tolik is another step in understanding how we will coexist with the intelligence that we are currently creating.

The project was completed as part of the Master's program "Technological Art" at the University of MISiS, 2025