Christie’s first-ever public sale devoted to artificial intelligence-generated artwork, Augmented Intelligence, concluded on Wednesday, March 5, exceeding estimates and, in line with the public sale home, drawing a recent wave of collectors.
The sale amassed $728,784, the public sale home mentioned in a press launch, outpacing its $600,000 projection.
Notably practically half of bidders, 48 p.c, recognized themselves as Millennials or Gen Z, whereas 37 p.c had been first-time patrons at Christie’s. The best-grossing lot, Machine Hallucinations – ISS Desires – A by Refik Anadol, fetched $277,200—effectively above its $200,000 estimate.
Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst’s diptych Embedding Examine 1 & 2 (from the xhairymutantx sequence) was one other excessive level, bringing in $94,500 on an estimate of between $70,000 and $90,000. The sale, which made up of 34 tons, had an 82 p.c promote by means of charge.
The public sale proceeded regardless of fierce opposition from hundreds of artists, who’ve argued AI fashions of exploiting human creativity with out consent. An open letter, signed by nearly 4,000 individuals, urged Christie’s to cancel the occasion, alleging that AI-generated artworks depend on datasets educated utilizing copyrighted materials with out compensation.
The letter ended with a plea: “Your help of those fashions, and the individuals who use them, rewards and additional incentivizes AI firms’ mass theft of human artists’ work. We ask that, you probably have any respect for human artists, you cancel the public sale.”
In response, the public sale home defended the legitimacy of the featured artists, framing AI as a instrument for artistic growth reasonably than substitute. “The artists represented on this sale have sturdy, present multidisciplinary artwork practices, some acknowledged in main museum collections,” the public sale home instructed ARTnews on the time. “The works on this public sale are utilizing synthetic intelligence to boost their our bodies of labor.”
Within the press launch, Nicole Gross sales Giles, vice chairman and director of digital artwork gross sales, mentioned “with this mission, our aim was to highlight the good artistic voices pushing the boundaries of know-how and artwork. We additionally hoped collectors and the broader group would acknowledge their affect and significance in right now’s creative panorama. The outcomes of this sale confirmed that they did.”
Whereas some digital artists, including Beeple, championed the sale, others decried it as emblematic of the continuing battle between human artistry and machine-driven innovation. The outcomes, nevertheless, counsel that AI artwork—controversial as it might be—is carving a agency place out there.
