Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, SA: Portuguese Mint: AI-designed Coin

To create a physical coin designed by Artificial Intelligence, the Portuguese Mint teamed up with the Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), a leading institution in the field of
Scientific Computing. For the first time in the history of coin
minting in Portugal, artificial intelligence (AI) will play
a role in the design of a piece. This pioneering experience
aims to illustrate a reality where the biological and the
digital are inseparable. One side of the coin — the reverse —
is designed by AI for humans, the other side — the obverse
— is designed by humans for machines. The side created by
AI will be what the AI “thinks” is a valid representation for
a human of “a coin about the digital world.” The human-
-drawn side — the obverse — will be the code needed for
the AI to reproduce the other side. In other words,
although they look different, the content of both sides
is identical, and it is technically possible to convert one
into the other.

Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC)

For the human being, the image on the reverse is divided
into 6 circular sectors and 3 layers of distinct visual style:
a first smooth layer, the surface; a second layer with abstract
structures and emerging patterns; and a third layer of concentric
lines with two height levels, which form a binary base.
For the AI, the image is a visualization of a mathematical
expression. The obverse is made up of a series of concentric
arcs that encode the mathematical expression corresponding
to the image on the reverse.
For a coin with these characteristics, the process is as
important as the product: the development is based on the
understanding that this is not just any coin, but a Portuguese
commemorative coin; and also that it is not produced by
any AI, but by an AI specifically developed for this purpose
by a group of CISUC researchers. Only in this way can this
piece fit into the collection of coins that have been minted,
and translate a vision of AI that is human-centred, ethically
responsible and aimed at expanding human capabilities, being able to design innovative artifacts that would not be
designed by people — that is, creating, not imitating.

CISUC has developed Computational Creativity
algorithms which, following the principles of the evolution
of species, allow images to evolve. To guide the evolutionary
process models were trained with billions of images in order
to promote the evolution of images that can be classified
as “coins about the digital world” and that share stylistic
characteristics with coins minted by the Portuguese Mint. The researchers
also used models of computational aesthetics that have been
trained on human preferences, promoting the evolution
of images that respect aesthetic principles. In the end,
the object produced shows how it is possible to combine
the natural and the artificial, making them two sides of the
same coin.

This coin aims to highlight the potential of Artificial Intelligence, which not only plays a growing role in our daily lives, but can also be a key tool to help save the planet and make it sustainable. Today it is possible to exploit the predictive power of AI to create better process models so that our ability to study current and future trends is optimized.