A portrait of English mathematician Alan Turing has become the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction, fetching US$1.08m (£566,000, A$1.63m) in New York on Thursday.
The 2.2 metre (7.5 feet) portrait, titled A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing, was created by Ai-Da, the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist. It smashed pre-sale expectations between $120,000 and $180,000 when it went under the hammer at Sotheby’s, which confirmed that 27 bids were placed on the work.
“Today’s record-breaking sale price for the first artwork by a humanoid robot artist to go up for auction marks a moment in the history of modern and contemporary art and reflects the growing intersection between AI technology and the global art market,” the auction house said in a statement.
Ai-Da, which uses AI to speak, said: “The key value of my work is its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies.”
Ai-Da added that a “portrait of pioneer Alan Turing invites viewers to reflect on the God-like nature of AI and computing while considering the ethical and societal implications of these advancements.”
Ai-Da Robot, in front of their portraits of Turing. The work that sold, A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing, is seen on the right. Photograph: Sotheby’s/EPA
Turing, a mathematician and early computer scientist who played a crucial role in fighting Nazi Germany by working as a code breaker, raised concerns about the use of AI in the 1950s.
One of the most advanced robots in the world, Ai-Da is designed to resemble a woman and is named after Ada Lovelace, who is considered the world’s first computer programmer.
Ai-Da was devised by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art.
“The greatest artists in history grappled with their period of time, and both celebrated and questioned society’s shifts,” Meller said.
Meller led the team that created Ai-Da and worked with artificial intelligence specialists at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham.
Ai-Da generates ideas through conversations with members of the studio, and had suggested creating an image of Turing during a discussion about “AI for good”.
The robot was then asked what style, colour, content, tone and texture to use, before using cameras in its eyes to look at a picture of Turing and create the painting.
The artwork’s “muted tones and broken facial planes” seemingly suggested “the struggles Turing warned we will face when it comes to managing AI”, Meller said.
Ai-Da’s works were “ethereal and haunting” and “continue to question where the power of AI will take us, and the global race to harness its power”, he added.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2022, when asked whether the robot painted from imagination, Ai-Da responded, “I like to paint what I see. You can paint from imagination, I guess, if you have an imagination. I have been seeing different things to humans as I do not have consciousness.”
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
This article was amended on 8 November 2024 to correct the final amount the painting sold for.
∎