{"id":11479,"date":"2025-03-28T12:16:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T11:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/uncategorized\/art-technology-and-millions\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T15:12:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T13:12:40","slug":"art-technology-and-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/ai-industry\/art-technology-and-millions\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83d\udd12 Art, technology and millions"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s nothing new that artists reach for different technological tools to go beyond the limitations of manual creative methods. Camera obscura<\/em> (which dates back to antiquity) helped painters accurately reproduce perspective and proportions of painted objects. Camera lucida<\/em> allowed for an almost photographic reflection of the details of the painted object. Photography as we know it today was invented at the end of the 19th century. Even then, painters began to fear that it would deprive them of work and status, and take away their monopoly of capturing reality. However, photography became an autonomous field of art. Thanks to it, painters freed themselves from the need to faithfully represent the world and began to develop abstractionism and other directions in painting. The digital era was another groundbreaking stage in the history of art. Thanks to computers, graphic programs and the internet, artists have gained entirely new tools for expressing their creativity.<\/p>

\"\"Camera obscura, source: wikipedia.org<\/p>

Today, in the era of generative AI’s boom, questions about originality, creativity and ethics take on a new meaning. Especially when big money is involved.<\/strong><\/p>

In late February and early March 2025, Christie’s auction house held an auction titled Augmented Intelligence<\/mark><\/a> <\/mark>. For the first time in the company’s history, the items up for auction were artistic objects created with the help of diverse AI-based tools\u2014from generative adversarial networks, through text-to-image models, to robotics and big data analysis.<\/p>

The highest selling price, which was $277,200, was paid for the video installation by Refik Anadol<\/mark><\/a> titled “Machine Hallucinations \u2013 ISS Dreams \u2013 A”. This work is part of a larger series and utilizes over 1.2 million images taken from the International Space Station, which were transformed by AI algorithms into a dynamic visualization.<\/p>

\"\"Refik Anadol’s creation displayed on a large screen<\/p>

Here’s what the artist says about his creative process:<\/p>

At the core of my artistic practice lies a dialogue between human creativity and artificial intelligence\u2014one that continually redefines the boundaries of art, perception and machine learning. Artificial intelligence isn’t just a tool, it’s my collaborator. It transforms massive datasets (drawn from collective memory, environmental systems and architectural or institutional archives) into engaging, multisensory compositions. My creative process is both scientific and poetic: I train machine learning models on different datasets, influencing their evolution through selected interventions, algorithmic enhancements and my own aesthetic intuition. This way, artificial intelligence becomes an extension of my imagination. I strive to create spaces filled with wonder and elation, where data aren’t merely processed, but experienced, and machine intelligence becomes a bridge to expanded human perception.<\/em><\/p>

\"\"Refik Anadol, source: ucla.edu<\/p>

Christie\u2019s attracted a significant number of new participants<\/mark><\/a>: 37% of registered bidders participated in the event for the first time, and 48% were Millennials and Gen Z. Does this signify a growing interest among younger collectors in digital art and works created with AI? Each piece was assigned its own NFT, and of course, payments could be made in cryptocurrency. It’s worth noting that not all displayed works found buyers.<\/p>

Controversies surrounding the auction<\/strong><\/h4>

The auction faced significant criticism from the artistic community. Over 6500 artists signed an open letter<\/mark><\/a>, expressing concerns about the ethical aspects of selling works created using AI models. Particularly since these are often trained on copyrighted materials without their creators’ consent (I wrote about a similar phenomenon in the music world in this article<\/mark><\/a>).<\/p>

In response to these allegations, representatives from Christie’s emphasized<\/mark><\/a> that the artists whose works were auctioned have well-established positions in the art world, and they turned to AI to enrich their works. Moreover, the models were trained solely on proprietary resources provided by the creators themselves. Christie\u2019s, which has been thriving on the work of artists for over 250 years, is beginning to promote a direction that stirs controversy within their own community. Will this end up in some larger boycott? On the other hand, it’s worth noting that the protest was not criticism of the use of AI technology per se, but rather of the ethical aspects related to model training, particularly the use of data without proper agreements\/compensation.<\/p>

Going once, going twice\u2026<\/strong><\/h4>

In November 2024, the auction house Sotheby’s put up for auction the painting “A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing,” which was painted by the robot artist Ai-Da. this robot was created by contemporary art specialist Aidan Moeller in collaboration with scientists from the universities of Oxford and Birmingham. The painting sold for a staggering $1.1 million, causing quite a stir in the collector’s world. It’s noteworthy that the portrait depicts the mathematician and computer science pioneer who, as early as in the 1950s, anticipated the role artificial intelligence would play in the future development of humanity.<\/p>

\"\"Ai-Da robot. On the right, a portrait of Turing. Source: Ai-Da Robot Studios<\/p>

In August 2023, the Polish auction house Art In House invited creators to the project “Artists & AI”<\/mark><\/a>. The plan was to organize an auction of artworks created with the support of artificial intelligence. Paintings generated by programs like MidJourney or Dall-e were then to be transferred by the creators onto canvas, wood or paper. However, the auction ultimately did not take place\u2014I couldn’t find out why. Thus, we’re still waiting for a similar initiative in the Polish auction market.<\/p>

What do the people involved think about this?<\/p>

Urszula \u015awi\u0119cicka, President <\/em>of the Association of Polish Visual Artists (ZPAP)<\/strong><\/p>

It’s natural to have concerns about unknown issues. We know, thanks to years of experience (artists associated with ZPAP have gone through a lot\u2014we’ve been around for 114 years), that this is just another tool.<\/em><\/p>

The algorithm is backed by a human. And “Nothing human is alien to me”.<\/em> We painters create new artistic expressions, we craft new artifacts that will soon be absorbed, copied and processed by AI. But ultimately, the effect will be “such as”, “in the style of”, “similar to”, “referring to”, and so on.<\/em><\/p>

I personally believe that it’s thanks to AI that respect for unique, original and singular artifacts made by an artist will return.<\/em><\/p>

Ewa Gbiorczyk, President of the Association of Visual Artists<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

Oh, a boycott is near. I’ve talked with several artists who use AI elements in their work. AI is interesting and helpful, yet we focus more on copyright issues, where there’s still a lack of regulations.<\/em><\/p>

We emphasize handcrafted works and reject proposals for pieces made with AI tools. Currently, you can easily distinguish between manually created paintings and those made using AI.<\/em><\/p>

The problem escalates with photography or photographic art because there, you can’t distinguish between human and non-human creators. Works created by AI must absolutely be separated legally. They should also be displayed in different places from those where human-made works are exhibited.<\/em><\/p>

As you can see, even the art community is divided on this issue. Discussions about generative art often focus on copyright, compensation for creators, and the fundamental question of what art actually is in the AI era. Hopefully, there will be as many of these conversations as possible, although I doubt they can dispel all doubts. As I wrote in this text, <\/mark><\/a> <\/mark>I approach very cautiously the issue of “unleashing human creativity” that AI developers promise. It would be beneficial if quality followed quantity and if a sense of aesthetics accompanied the proficiency in handling tools. Because beauty is equally important\u2014that is, that subjective delight. Regardless of the technology behind the work, it’s ultimately the audience who decides what moves them and what they consider valuable.<\/p>

And may there be as much human element in it as possible.<\/p>

\"\"The “Golden Breath” painting was auctioned off for $21,420. Source: christies.com<\/p>

PS. In March 2025 Grimes sold a collection of digital NFT artifacts<\/mark><\/a> (images, video clips, animations and poems) for nearly 6 million dollars. I wonder if we’re heading towards another speculative bubble like generative art one in 2021-2022, when, for example, selected avatars from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection fetched truly astronomical sums. NFT number #8817, which was sold back then for 3.4 million dollars, is now worth just 100 thousand.<\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

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New technologies are constantly changing the way we create and perceive art. However, where innovation appears, big money quickly follows. Is the financial competition for works created by algorithms a natural stage of market development, or is it a bubble that will soon burst?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[783,788],"tags":[],"popular":[],"difficulty-level":[36],"ppma_author":[352],"class_list":["post-11479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai-industry","category-culture-media","difficulty-level-easy"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":352,"user_id":10,"is_guest":0,"slug":"seweryn-jakubiec","display_name":"Seweryn Jakubiec","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9f6a221b4ee0d45f9cb264964464c87cc2036e4466dc908a6ec21be51baff707?s=96&d=mm&r=g","first_name":"Seweryn","last_name":"Jakubiec","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":"Senior Product Manager w bran\u017cy IT, obserwator \u015bwiata tech i AI, muzyk-amator, wielbiciel kot\u00f3w rasy Devon Rex"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11480,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11479\/revisions\/11480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11479"},{"taxonomy":"popular","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/popular?post=11479"},{"taxonomy":"difficulty-level","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/difficulty-level?post=11479"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}