Sotheby's
With AI image generators growing more advanced and accessible, the use of artificial intelligence in art is a hot topic. But what happens when “AI art” means a physical portrait painted by a robot instead of a digitally generated image? Sotheby’s auction house intends to find out at its Digital Art Day auction starting October 31. The auction’s star offering is “A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing,” painted in mixed media on canvas by robot Ai-Da.
Sotheby’s estimates that the painting will sell for $120,000 to $180,000. Appropriately, cryptocurrency payments are accepted.
The painting is an abstract portrait of mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, known for cracking the code on the Enigma cryptography machines in World War II. Famously asking “Can machines think?” as both inspiration and warning, he is recognized today as a pioneer in artificial intelligence. The painter, Ai-Da, created by U.K. gallery owner Aidan Meller, has cameras for eyes and uses robotic arms to grasp a paintbrush and follow algorithms (sets of mathematical instructions) to paint. “A.I. God.” was displayed in an exhibit at the AI for Good Global Summit at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this year.
Meller told CBS MoneyWatch, “What makes this work of art different from other AI-generated works is that with Ai-Da, there is a physical manifestation, and this is the first time a work from a robot of this type has ever come to auction.” He also says, “There is a lot of innovation happening—a huge number of robots are coming forward–and they will eventually do all sorts of different tasks. Art is a way of discussing the incredible changes in society that are happening because of technology.”
Not everyone sees these changes as positive. While computers have been extremely useful in many creative pursuits for decades, from visual arts to publishing books, the recent use of AI algorithms is controversial. Thousands of creative professionals recently signed an open letter opposing the unlicensed use of art to train algorithms. Matters of ethics and intellectual property rights abound. “What is art?” is a perennial question, and the use of algorithms adds another dimension to it.
Humanoid machines, or automata, that can create pictures have existed for hundreds of years. One of the most famous, Maillardet’s Automaton, was built by a Swiss clockmaker around 1800. However, automata like these are usually seen as imitating human actions, not creating works of art. It is unlikely that Sotheby’s auction will settle the question of whether machines can create art. However, one thing the auction can tell us is whether Ai-Da’s painting creates monetary value. For some art collectors, that’s the most important question of all.
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