A portrait of the renowned English mathematician Alan Turing has made history as the first artwork created by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction, achieving a remarkable price of over $1 million on Thursday. The auction house hailed this event as a significant milestone in the realms of modern and contemporary art, highlighting the increasing convergence between artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the global art market.
The piece, titled "A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing," was crafted by Ai-Da, a humanoid robot artist utilizing advanced AI algorithms. During Sotheby’s Digital Art day sale on November 7, the artwork was sold for $1,084,800, far exceeding its initial estimate of $120,000 to $180,000. The portrait, measuring 64 by 90 inches and executed in mixed media on canvas, garnered a total of 27 bids before being purchased by an anonymous buyer from the United States, and it included a third-party guarantee.
According to Meller, the proceeds from this sale will be reinvested into enhancing Ai-Da's design and capabilities. "We reinvest everything back into the project," he stated, noting that Ai-Da is continuously updated and is already on her third painting arm.
While this marks a groundbreaking moment, it is not the first instance of AI-generated art being sold at auction. In 2018, Christie’s auctioned a painting created by an algorithm from a French startup for $432,500. Additionally, artist Refik Anadol sold several works titled “Machine Hallucination,” generated through AI, for millions during the NFT boom in 2021.
Meller initially encouraged Ai-Da to create an artwork for a United Nations conference on artificial intelligence this year. The robot proposed a portrait of Turing, recognizing him as a visionary who anticipated the potential of AI technology as early as the 1950s. "Ai-Da, as a technological entity, is the ideal artist to engage in discussions about current technological advancements and their lasting implications," he added.
Ai-Da formulates artistic concepts through dialogues with studio members and suggested the idea of portraying Turing during a conversation centered on "A.I. for good." The team then guided the robot in deciding on the style, color, content, tone, and texture, after which Ai-Da utilized cameras in its eyes to analyze an image of Turing and produce the painting.
Meller led the team that developed Ai-Da in collaboration with AI experts from Oxford and Birmingham universities. Turing, celebrated for his pivotal role as a codebreaker in World War II, mathematician, and early computer scientist, had expressed concerns regarding the implications of AI back in the 1950s.
The artwork's "muted tones and fragmented facial planes" are thought to reflect the challenges Turing foresaw in managing AI, according to Meller. He described Ai-Da's creations as "ethereal and haunting," emphasizing their ability to provoke questions about the trajectory of AI and the global competition to harness its capabilities.
Zainab Y.
Also on site :
- Apple’s M4 MacBook Air Now Starts From Only $899 On Amazon And Offers 16GB Of Unified RAM, Different Configurations On Amazon Receive Their Biggest Discount At Up To $150 Off
- Skate won't be playable offline to offer a "massively multiplayer" sandbox that's "always online and always evolving"
- Pony.ai teams up with Tencent for robotaxi services on WeChat, other apps