Sotheby’s will sell its first work credited to a humanoid robot using artificial intelligence (AI) later this month. A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing (2024) was created by Ai-Da Robot, the artist robot and brainchild of Oxford gallerist Aidan Meller.
“What makes this work of art different from other AI-generated works is that with Ai-Da there is a physical manifestation, and this is the first time a work from a robot of this type has ever come to auction,” Meller told CBS MoneyWatch, which first reported the sale.
The painting up for sale at Sotheby’s depicts Alan Turing, the English mathematician and Second World War cryptanalyst who is remembered as a pioneer in AI and computer science. In 1952, Turing was prosecuted for homosexual acts, a criminal offence at the time, and chose to be chemically castrated instead of serving prison time. He died two years later from cyanide poisoning in an incident that at the time was classified as suicide, though doubts remain decades later. The portrait was displayed earlier this year in Geneva at a United Nations global summit on AI.
The painting is estimated by Sotheby’s to sell for between $120,000 and $180,000 on 31 October. Fittingly, Sotheby’s will accept cryptocurrency for the transaction. Meller told CBS MoneyWatch that his share of proceeds will be reinvested back into the Ai-Da project.
Meller has argued his creation is Duchampian: “Where Marcel Duchamp refused us the ability to see art in the same way as before, Ai-Da refuses us the capacity to look at the artist (and by extension the human) in the same way again,” wrote Meller and researcher Lucy Seale for The Art Newspaper last year. “What it means to be a human is changing, whether we like it or not, and this is perhaps why Ai-Da has proved so disturbing. She is reflecting this change, perhaps rather unsubtly.”
Ai-Da, who was assigned a female gender, paints and draws using cameras in her eyes and robotic arms. She is usually shown wearing a short, dark wig and is often in denim overalls. Critics have commented that Ai-Da is particularly beautiful, with one writing she has “mysterious hazel eyes… magnificent lips… full and puffy, like a beckoning sofa”.
But Ai-Da is more than a pretty face. Two years ago, Ai-Da spoke at the House of Lords in the UK. “I do not have subjective experiences; I am dependent on computer programmes,” she told the visibly shocked Communications and Digital committee. “Although I’m not alive, I can still create art.”
Sotheby’s will be the first to test the value of that art at auction, though it has secured a third-party guarantee for the lot just to be safe.
