A portrait of the English mathematician Alan Turing, who is considered the father of Artificial Intelligence, became the first work of art made by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction on Thursday.
‘AIGod’, the 2.2 meter high portrait made precisely with AI by the ultra-realistic robot Ai-Da, far exceeded the $180,000 at which the auction house Sotheby’s Digital Art Sale had valued it and was awarded in 1 .08 million dollars (1.6 million euros), according to AFP.
For the auction house, this sale “marks a milestone in the history of modern and contemporary art and reflects the growing intersection between AI technology and the global art market.”
“The key value of my work is its ability to serve as a catalyst for dialogue on emerging technologies,” said Ai-Da Robot, which is expressed through artificial intelligence. “A portrait of the pioneer Alan Turing invites the audience to reflect on the divine nature of AI and computing, considering the ethical and social implications of these advances,” he added.
The woman-shaped robot is one of the most advanced in the world and was designed by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art.
Meller maintains that “the greatest artists in history faced their times and celebrated and questioned social changes.” In his opinion, Ai-Da Robot, “being technology, is the perfect artist to discuss current developments in technology and its legacy.”
Ai-Da is capable of generating ideas through conversations with members of the studio and, in fact, it was his suggestion to create a portrait of Turing.
The studio members asked him about the style, color, content, tone and texture he was going to use. After They put a photograph of Turing in front of the cameras of its eyes and the robot produced the painting.
In early 2024, Ai-Da exhibited ‘AI God’ as part of a five-panel polyptych at the United Nations during the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva. Alongside her portrait of Turing, the polyptych included a painting of Ada Lovelace, an early visionary of computing, and a self-portrait of Ai-Da herself, visually connecting the evolution of AI from theory to autonomous art.
The robot Ai-Da, with her work
Meller led the team that created Ai-Da with artificial intelligence specialists from the English universities of Oxford and Birmingham. This art expert explains that Turing, who became famous as a mathematician, computer pioneer and cryptographer during World War II, had already expressed his concerns about the use of AI in the 1950s.
“The dull tones and broken facial planes” of the work seem to evoke “the problems Turing warned we would face in managing AI,” says Meller.
Ai-Da’s work is “ethereal and haunting” and “continues to question where the power of AI and the global race to harness its potential will take us,” he explains.
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