One painting by Alan TuringBritish computer scientist and code breaker, created by a robot with artificial intelligence (AI) was sold for around R$6 millionreturning-if to most valuable work of art made by a humanoid robot ever sold at auction and raising new questions about the role of artificial intelligence in art.
The sale price far exceeded the pre-auction estimate of approximately R$688,000 to R$1 million, with it attracting 27 bids before being sold to a buyer, according to auction house Sotheby’s, which conducted the sale in New York. York.
The painting, titled “AI God: Portrait of Alan Turing”, was created by Ai-Da, a humanoid robot artist with black bob hair and robotic arms, who communicates using advanced language models and was invented by British gallerist Aidan Meller.
Turing’s work laid the foundation for the development of the first computers and helped the Allies decode German communications during World War II. He took his own life in 1954 after being convicted under Victorian-era homophobic laws and subjected to chemical castration.
Eight decades after Turing predicted the emergence of computers and AI, Meller hopes that Ai-Da and his works can act as “a kind of mirror for where we are going.”
“It seems like a very opportune moment to reflect on this nascent reality of what is actually happening in society,” he told CNN last Friday (1).
“We are entering a post-human world where decision-making is not human, it is increasingly algorithmic because we have seen that it is trustworthy… Ai-Da’s work is really showing the future potential of where we could go,” he added.
The surprising sum that Ai-Da’s work fetched at auction marks a shift in the way AI art is viewed and valued in the art market — a shift that Meller compares to the invention of the camera.
“There is a slightly apocalyptic vision of the art of AI eliminating everyone. The camera has changed the art world massively… I feel like it’s something similar, (but) it’s more than that… because AI can be done in so many different ways, whereas the camera was just a physical representation of light, so it’s more singular ,” he said.
Not everyone sees this as such a significant milestone. For Alastair Sooke, chief art critic of the British newspaper The Telegraph, it represents just a “very sophisticated and elaborate version of those periodical reports about farm animals that supposedly can paint like Pablo Picasso”.
Ai-Da was launched in 2019 after Meller collaborated with a robotics company in Cornwall, England, to build it. “It challenges what it is to be human, it’s bigger than just the question of art,” Meller said.
“I think Ai-Da is a harbinger of where a human could go… so (she) is very unsettling by her very existence, but she’s just symptomatic of what’s going on, she’s not doing it, she’s just a symbol of it. ”.
Before beginning her works, Ai-Da discusses with her creators the things she would like to paint. “In this case, we had a discussion with her about “AI for good,” which led Ai-Da to mention Alan Turing as a key person in the AI story she wanted to paint,” Meller said in a statement.
After answering questions about the style, content, tone and texture of the painting, Ai-Da used cameras in her eyes to look at a photo of Turing and create preliminary sketches of him.
It then painted 15 individual paintings of parts of Turing’s face, each different depending on how the algorithm interprets the photo. Each one took about six to eight hours and then they were asked how to put them together.
In the end, she chose three, plus a painting of Turing’s Bombe Machine, the name given to the decoding device he built, which appears in the background.
Since Ai-Da’s arm can only paint on a small canvas measuring 28.7 x 41.9 centimeters, the final image is printed on a larger canvas using a textured 3D printer. Sotheby’s noted that “there is no change to the underlying image in this process.”
The way Ai-Da paints has changed since its creation, Meller said, as its autonomy is “increasing… and increasing,” and its technology is constantly updated to stay on the cutting edge.
“The core value of my work is its ability to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies,” Ai-Da said in a press release.
“”AI God”, a portrait of pioneer Alan Turing, invites viewers to reflect on the divine nature of AI and computing, considering the ethical and social implications of these advances. Alan Turing recognized this potential and is watching us as we race toward that future,” added the robot.
