Synthetic intelligence and artwork have been controversial for years. So it is no shock that Christie’s faced protests over its first-ever AI-dedicated auction, which the public sale home says was the primary ever from any main public sale home, confronted protests. In February, greater than 5,600 artists signed an open letter asking Christie’s to cancel the sale.
“Most of the artworks you intend to public sale had been created utilizing AI fashions which are recognized to be skilled on copyrighted work with out a license,” the open letter reads partially. “These fashions, and the businesses behind them, exploit human artists, utilizing their work with out permission or fee to construct industrial AI merchandise that compete with them. Your help of those fashions, and the individuals who use them, rewards and additional incentivizes AI firms’ mass theft of human artists’ work.”
A consultant for Christie’s shared an announcement in regards to the challenge.
“From the start, two issues have been true in regards to the artwork world: one, artists are impressed by what got here earlier than them, and two, artwork can spark debate, dialogue, and controversy,” the assertion reads. “The discussions round digital artwork, together with artwork created utilizing AI expertise, usually are not new and in some ways needs to be anticipated. Many artists — Pop artists, for instance — have been the topic of comparable discussions. Having mentioned that, Christie’s, a world firm with world-class consultants, is uniquely positioned to discover the comparatively new and ever-changing house of digital artwork: the artists, collectors, market and challenges.”
The consultant additionally pointed to a positive reception to the auction on X, previously Twitter. Artist Daniel Ambrosi tweeted, “So thrilled to have been part of this unforgettable expertise… and delighted that my paintings goes residence with somebody!”
An individual seems at AI paintings created by Huemin referred to as Dream-0 #9 at a press preview for Augmented Intelligence at Christie’s in New York.
The public sale, dubbed Augmented Intelligence, closed Wednesday morning. Greater than 30 tons attracted lots of of bids and introduced in $728,784, Christie’s stories. And there is a generational twist: The public sale home says 37% of registrants had been utterly new to Christie’s, and 48% of bidders had been millennials or members of Gen Z.Â
“The public sale redefines the evolution of artwork and expertise, exploring human company within the age of AI inside high quality artwork,” a promotional assertion from Christie’s learn. “From robotics to GANs to interactive experiences, artists incorporate and collaborate with synthetic intelligence in a wide range of mediums together with work, sculptures, prints, digital artwork and extra.”
(GANs, or generative adversarial networks, are generative AI fashions that create new information or photographs that resemble the information they’re skilled on.)
An individual holds a print out of AI paintings created by ClownVamp’s The Junk Machine at a press preview for Augmented Intelligence at Christie’s in New York.
The open letter gathered 6,493 signatures, of which 5,646 had been verified. The signers vary from illustrators to authors to artwork therapists to cinematographers, from international locations all throughout the globe.
The very best worth within the sale was $277,200 for a piece by Refik Anadol titled Machine Hallucinations — ISS Desires — A. It used an information set of greater than 1.2 million photographs taken from the Worldwide Area Station and satellites.
One other work, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s Embedding Research 1 & 2, offered for $94,500. It was the results of a text-to-image mannequin skilled on altered photographs of Herndon herself and got here to Christie’s following its inclusion within the 2024 Whitney Biennial.Â
