Portrait of AI robot artist Turing fetched $1.1 million at Sotheby’s

A portrait of computer science pioneer Alan Turing by artificial robot artist AI-DA has sold for $1.08 million at Sotheby's, marking another milestone in the rapid growth of the AI ​​art market. The sale price exceeded pre-auction estimates.

The price is close to 10-X'd early estimates, which assume the piece won't top $180,000 at auction.

Michael Buhana, head of digital art at Sotheby's, told Decrypt Time that the moment reflects a trend that is emerging, particularly among young people. “The combination of art and technology is gaining more interest,” he said, “especially among young collectors.”

A 2.2-meter (7.5-foot) portrait titled “AI God” drew 27 bids in Thursday's online sale, Sotheby's said. The work depicts Turin, known as the father of artificial intelligence, and appears to have been inspired by the works of Pablo Picasso and Doris Salcedo, according to Sotheby's.

This sale follows a trend of AI art gaining institutional recognition, a trend perhaps best known when Jason Michael Allen Midjourney's “Theatre d'Opera Spacial” won the Colorado State Fair's digital art category in 2022 amid the AI ​​boom.

Allen's piece, which required 624 text prompts and multiple post-processing in Photoshop, sold for $750.–A fraction of Ai-Da's success.

But despite its controversy, many artists are already embracing generative AI. From big names like Refik Anadol's Machine Hallucinations to amateur fan works like Terrance Washington's “Countrywoman,” the fusion of human creativity and machine learning seems ever more intertwined.

And this is the message I-DA wanted to convey with his artwork: Humans must reflect on their role in the future of human society. “AI God's Alan Turing dissolving portrait reflects the transition from human agency to a posthuman world where algorithms make most decisions and the influence of technology is pervasive and integrated,” he says, using advanced LLMs to communicate.

The creation of the ultra-realistic human artist comes at a time when the cultural impact of AI innovation is growing, from chatbots generating devoted followers, interacting with humans, and autonomous AI systems exhibiting spontaneous proto-cultural behaviors in controlled experiments with minimal intervention.

And AI bots have proven their ability to make money on their own, not just by making art. Most recently, an AI chatbot called Terminal of Truths generated enough social media influence to enter the top 100 digital assets by market capitalization, surpassing established tokens like IOTA and Zcash.

“The key value of my work is its ability to serve as a catalyst for discussion about new technologies,” says i-da Robot, who uses advanced AI language models to communicate. Named after computer pioneer Ada Lovelace, the ultra-realistic humanoid artist generates ideas in studio discussions before using camera-equipped eyes to create his paintings.

The sale represents a critical moment for the $65 billion global art market, even as the art community grapples with the implications of AI. Major online art platforms have banned AI-generated works, with some communities going so far as to exclude human artists whose styles resemble AI output, and the sale of fully AI-generated artwork at a popular auction house is a significant boost to generative AI advocates. .

Sotheby's launched a digital art department in 2021, which has generated over $200 million in sales since its debut. Many of these sales have included new technologies such as NFTs and AI-assisted/generated artwork. Its collection of digital art includes works from famous digital artists such as Rhea Myers, Pac and DJ Don Diablo.

Ai-Da's “AI God” portrait was unveiled at the United Nations 2024 AI for Good Global Summit. The robot artist took up to eight hours to complete each of the 15 paintings in the collection, commenting on society's algorithmic transition using scattered images.

Turing, who helped break Nazi Germany's Enigma code during World War II, warned of the implications of AI in the 1950s. His portrait style seems to allude to these concerns, with the theoretical computer-like patterns he designed appearing in the background.

While AI art auctions are not new, I-DA's humanistic approach “helps expand the definition of AI art,” said Cuban Elliott, who specializes in artificial intelligence in the creative industries.