The Robot Sculptors of Italy | Hacker News Reader

The Robot Sculptors of Italy

bloomberg.com

There are lots of videos online of this, pretty cool to see, and also lots of artists apparently complaining why they don't use humans, not understanding that every piece is hand finished, so they are hiring more artists than ever before.

Also, the article is talking about Sai Baba but the images are of Sathya Sai Baba, they are two different people who lived a century apart.

This opens up a lot more possibilities for artists than it takes away.

Yeah, possibilities to try yourself in other areas. For example, in the aria of frying burgers in a fast food restaurant

They have fewer sculptors than ever it says

I doubt that's because of the introduction of robots, but because of the high price of materials and labor limiting who can afford them.

"60 Minutes" published a similar story in 2024 and the chunk of Carrara marble needed to produce a large statue cost about $300,000. To carve a statue entirely by hand from it would be more than a year's labor, so add another $100k+ to that. If a robot can do the boring part of removing the waste, that makes sculptures more accessible. And could result in an increase in the number of sculptors in the world who are doing the finishing parts that add beauty to the stone.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robots-future-of-sculpture-some...

Where I have a problem with the approach is the use of 3D scanners and robots to mass-produce copies of existing masterpieces. If everyone has an exact copy of "David" then the value of the original is diminished.

If 3D design tools are used to create original pieces of art, produced with the assistance of robots (and maybe some that were never technically possible before) that's interesting.

until they invent an automatic finishing machine...

https://archive.ph/20250709144747/https://www.bloomberg.com/...

James Watt of steam-engine fame was one of the first people to try to mechanically reproduce statues: https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/sj.20...

The writer seems to have gotten his "Sai Baba"s mixed up. The statue seems to be of the more modern one ( Sathya Sai Baba, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba ) who passed away in 2011, and not the OG Shirdi Sai Baba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Baba_of_Shirdi

I noticed that too and contacted Bloomberg to correct this mistake.

Also https://www.monumentallabs.co/ in the US

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33940043

Didn't they get their robots from Italy?

Heh! I recognized the robots as being originally made by Kuka, because those were the ones used at my last job.

The company looks like: https://www.robotor.it/products/

Those look like fun toys - must have been fun getting that going.

How much does a robot-assisted sculpture cost versus an unassisted sculpture?

It says: Robotic process (with manual finishing), Total time: 77 days, Cost: €64k. Manual process (entirely by hand): Total time: 132 days, Cost: €90k. Note: Time and cost figures are estimates. Cost estimates exclude the cost of the marble.

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