philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

AI Robot Artist’s Turing Portrait Fetches $1.1 Million at Sotheby’s

A portrait of computer science pioneer Alan Turing by humanoid robot artist Ai-Da sold for $1.08 million at Sotheby's, marking another milestone in AI art's rapid market ascent. The sale price exceeded pre-auction estimates building on momentum from previous AI art breakthroughs. ...

"The combination of art and technology is gaining more interest," he said, "particularly among a younger generation of collectors." ...

But as controversial as it is, many artists are already embracing generative AI. From big names like Refik Anadol’s Machine Hallucinnations to the works of amateur enthusiasts like Terrance Washington’s “Country Woman” the fusion of human creativity and machine learning seems to be more intertwined.

And this is exactly the message Ai-Da wanted to deliver with its artwork: Humans should reflect about the role of AI in the future of human society. ...

And AI bots have proven very capable of making money all by themselves—not just by making art. Most recently, an AI chatbot called Terminal of Truths generated enough social media influence to propel a cryptocurrency, Goatseus Maximus, into the top 100 digital assets by market capitalization, surpassing established tokens like IOTA and Zcash. ...

Major online art forums have banned AI-generated works, with some communities going so far as to exclude human artists whose style resembles AI outputs, so a fully AI-generated artwork being sold by a prestigious auction house is an important endorsement for generative AI advocates. ...

Ai-Da's "AI God" portrait was displayed at the UN's 2024 AI for Good Global Summit. The robot artist spent up to eight hours completing each of the 15 paintings in the collection, using fragmented imagery to comment on society's algorithmic transition. ...

Cuba Elliott, a curator specializing in artificial intelligence in creative industries, noted to Decrypt that while AI art auctions aren't new, Ai-Da's humanoid approach "helps to further broaden the definition of AI art."

See the full story here: https://decrypt.co/290899/ai-robot-artist-turing-portrait-fetches-1million-sothebys