Christie's Groundbreaking AI Art Auction Sparks Controversy and Debate

Christie's to host groundbreaking auction featuring only AI art

Christie's is holding a sale dedicated entirely to art created with artificial intelligence - the first of its kind to be held at a major auction house. Kicking off on 20 February and running until 5 March, the 'Augmented Intelligence' sale at Christie's in New York will showcase more than 20 works from AI pioneers like Refik Anadol, Pinar Van Arman, and Claire Silver, spanning everything from early neural network experiments to contemporary creations. This marks the first time a major auction house has hosted an exclusive AI art auction. The collection will include a diverse mix of pieces - some of which are NFTs, while others are physical works such as sculptures, paintings, and prints. Perhaps the most intriguing lot will be 'Emerging Faces' (2017) by Pinar Van Arman, a series of abstract portraits painted by two AI agents. The AI algorithms work together, one generating human faces while the other halts the process once a face is detected. The evocative - even haunting - results are considered among the first to be painted autonomously by neural networks. Another unique feature of the sale is the inclusion of an interactive robot painting. The 3.7-metre-tall (12 feet) robot, created by Alexander Reben, will be on hand at the Rockefeller Center gallery, where it will paint a new section of the canvas in real time as online bids increase. Starting at just $100, bidders can watch the art take shape as the auction progresses. Alongside these works, husband-and-wife duo Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst will present their Embedding Study' (2024) pieces, which were part of the 2024 Whitney Biennial. These works, which feature a character in a bulky spacesuit, are based on Herndon's appearance and made using a text-to-image AI model. Though the majority of the pieces are expected to fetch significant sums, there has been some controversy surrounding the auction. Reid Southern, an illustrator, published an open letter calling on artists not to auction works that may have been created using AI models trained on copyrighted works without permission. "Many of the works you are planning to put up for auction use AI models trained on copyrighted works," reads the letter, "AI models and the companies behind them exploit human artists and use their works without permission or compensation to build commercial AI products that compete with artists." As of Monday 10 February, the letter had been signed by over 3,400 people, with many citing concerns about the ethics behind using AI in art creation. For its part, Christie's wrote on X that the sale "challenges us to rethink the limits of artistic agency". The auction house is optimistic and is expecting the auction to bring in at least $600,000 (€581,000), with cryptocurrency being accepted as payment for most of the lots. Christie's has already made its mark in the digital art world, not least with a landmark non-fungible token (NFT) auction in 2021. On 11 March 2021, the auction house made history by selling Beeple's 'Everydays: The First 5000 Days' for a staggering $69 million €66.8 million) - the first major auction house to bring NFTs to the global stage. In November, Sotheby's New York made waves by selling a painting created by Ai-Da, a humanoid robot powered by AI, for $1,084,800 (€1 million).

Christie's first AI art auction provokes fierce debate - and it's hard to pick a side

We've already seen auction houses start to flirt with AI art. Last year, the 'autonomous AI artist' Botto made $351,600 at Sotheby's. But Christie's decision to host an entire auction dedicated to AI art this month is sparking a fierce backlash. The controversy isn't unexpected, but is it the right fight for those opposed to AI art? Many of today's most popular AI image generators were trained on copyrighted material without permission, and there's also a fear that AI will put artists out of work. But not all AI art is theft. As we see in our piece on the history of AI art, the term is broad and includes art that was created or co-created using an artist or collective's own proprietary algorithms. In these cases, the argument against AI starts to look more like a Luddite reaction than an argument over ethics and intellectual property. Christie's bills Augmented Intelligence as its first complete auction dedicated to AI art. Running from 20 February to 5 March alongside an exhibition at the Rockefeller Center galleries in New York, it will feature 20 lots, from digital art to sculptures and acrylic and oil paintings. All of the pieces were created via some form of collaboration with artificial intelligence, and price estimates range from just $100 up to $1.7 million. Pieces include work from data and algorithmic art pioneers like Refik Anadol, founder of the upcoming Dataland AI art museum. The auction features one of his Machine Hallucinations made with an AI model trained on curated images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Other artists include Sasha Stiles, who works with an algorithmic alter-ego trained on her poetry, and OpenAI's first artist in residence Alexander Reben, whose Untitled Robot Painting blends generative AI with live performance. An open letter with more than 3,500 signatures calls for Christie's to cancel the AI art auction. Signed by many artists, the text reads: "Many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license. These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them." With a lot of so-called AI art, I would agree with the sentiment completely. But tarring everything with the same brush is oversimplistic. Christie's isn't selling AI slop churned out using a few prompts in Midjourney - and that kind of 'art' is hardly likely to sell at even the lowest prices that auction house is estimating. A lot of the artists featured in the auction use bespoke algorithms, in many cases trained on their own work. And many of the pieces were collaborations with algorithmic tools rather than pure AI generations, putting them in a long tradition of algorithmic art that dates back to the 1960s. Writing on X, Refik Anadol seemed to find the controversy amusing. "This is so funny :). [The] majority of the artists in the project specifically pushing and using their own datasets + their own models! This is the basic problem of entire art ecosystem, results of lazy critic practices and doomsday hysteria-driven dark minds." Christie's stresses that the artists represented in the sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, with some of them recognised in leading museum collections. "The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work and in most cases AI is being employed in a controlled manner, with data trained on the artists' own inputs," it says. Nicole Sales Giles, Christie's director of digital art, says in an announcement of the exhibition: "'AI is not a substitute for human creativity. It enhances the human spectrum of creativity. It's about employing technology to push what is possible, exploring what is achievable outside of, but not separate from, human agency.' The debate caused by the auction shows the continued controversy around AI art, and the strength of opinion against it. Even old-fashioned Photoshop fails now lead to accusations of AI use, as we saw with the recent Fantastic Four poster. But criticising all AI art as if it were made using a tool like Stable Diffusion risks losing support for the fight against unlicensed use of art to train image generators. Meanwhile, the US Copyright Office has shed more light on its stance on AI art copyright.

'Augmented Intelligence': Christie's Reveals First Auction Dedicated to AI Art - Decrypt

Luxury auction giant Christie's is set to host its first-ever sale comprised solely of artworks made with AI -- a key art world stamp of approval for the novel and at-times controversial technology. The auction, titled "Augmented Intelligence," will be open for bidding and on view at Christie's Manhattan gallery from February 20 to March 5. Per Christie's, it is the first AI-dedicated sale ever put on by a major auction house. The collection will feature over 20 AI-infused artworks from a variety of prominent digital artists known for exploring the relationship between automation and human creativity, including Pindar Van Arman, Harold Cohen, and Alexander Reben. "The auction redefines the relationship between art and technology, showing collectors human agency in the age of AI in Fine Art," Nicole Sales Giles, Christie's head of digital art sales, said in a statement shared with Decrypt. "From robotics to GANs to interactive experiences, artists incorporate artificial intelligence into their practices in many unique ways." The pieces on auction will range in medium from sculpture and paintings to screens, interactive works, and digital-native NFTs. Among the pieces expected to fetch the largest sum at auction is Pinar Van Arman's "Emerging Faces," a series of physical canvases painted by two AI agents that collaborated in 2017 to imagine human faces with generative AI and then paint them. The works are some of the first to have ever been painted autonomously by neural networks, and are anticipated to sell together in one lot for up to $250,000. Other works on auction will come to life in real time. At Christie's Rockefeller Center gallery, a large-scale robot guided by the coding of Alexander Reben will paint more and more of a fresh canvas as bids for the painting rise -- allowing auction participants to take part in the work's creation.

'Mass theft': Thousands of artists call for AI art auction to be cancelled

Letter says many of works being sold by Christie's are made by AI models trained on pieces by human artists, without a licence Thousands of artists are urging the auction house Christie's to cancel a sale of art created with artificial intelligence, claiming the technology behind the works is committing "mass theft". The Augmented Intelligence auction has been described by Christie's as the first AI-dedicated sale by a major auctioneer and features 20 lots with prices ranging from $10,000 to $250,000 for works by artists including Refik Andanol and the late AI art pioneer Harold Cohen. A lettter calling for the auction to be scrapped has received 3,000 signatures including from Karla Ortiz and Kelly McKernan, who are suing AI companies over claims that the firms' image generation tools have used their work without permission. The letter says: "Many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a licence. These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them." Calling on Christie's to cancel the auction, which starts on 20 February, it adds: "Your support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivizes AI companies' mass theft of human artists' work." The use of copyrighted work to train AI models - the technology that underpins chatbots and image generation tools such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney - has become a battleground between creatives and tech companies, with artists, authors, publishers and music labels launching a series of lawsuits alleging breach of copyright. The British composer Ed Newton-Rex, a key figure in the campaign by creative professionals for protection of their work and a signatory to the letter, said at least nine of the works appearing in the auction appear to have used models trained on artists' work. However, other pieces in the auction do not appear to have used such models. A spokesperson for Christie's said that "in most cases" the AI used to create art in the auction had been trained on the artists' "own inputs". "The artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognised in leading museum collections. The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work and in most cases, AI is being employed in a controlled manner, with data trained on the artists' own inputs," said the spokesperson. A British artist whose work features in the auction, Mat Dryhurst, said he cared about the issue of art and AI "deeply" and rejected the criticisms in the letter. A piece by Dryhurst and his wife, Holly Herndon - based on a work called xhairymutantx - is on sale at the auction with an estimated price of between $70,000 and $90,000. Dryhurst told the Guardian that the piece of art being auctioned was part of an exploration of how the "concept" of his wife appears in publicly available AI models. "This is of interest to us and we have made a lot of art exploring and attempting to intervene in this process as is well within our rights." He added: "It is not illegal to use any model to create artwork. I resent that an important debate that should be focused on companies and state policy is being focused on artists grappling with the technology of our time." Anadol also rejected the criticism. In a post on X, he said the backlash was a consequence of "lazy critic practices and doomsday hysteria".

An AI art auction is happening later this month and people are not happy about it

A letter has been published asking for the auction to be scrapped due to it selling artwork that incentivises mass theft of human work. Would you spend money on artwork that has been created by an artificial intelligence? If so, what would be your financial limit? Probably not the upwards of $250,000 that some pieces of AI art are set to sell for at the upcoming Augmented Intelligence auction being hosted by Christie's. The auction will start on February 20 and run until March 5, with the artwork being exhibited at the Rockefeller Center in New York City and looking to present "remarkable works from some of the most innovative minds". It will be selling work from "early AI pioneers of the 1960s such as Harold Cohen to contemporary artists such as Refik Anadol, Pindar Van Arman, Holly Herdnon & Mat Dryhusrt, Alexander Reben, Claire Silver, Sasha Stiles and more," and it will span digital art, to sculptures, to paintings, prints, and beyond. However, even though this auction will seemingly go-ahead as planned, many are not happy about it, and now a letter has been written and published on Open Letter that is calling for the auction to be cancelled. As noticed by The Guardian, the letter claims the following: "Many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license. These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them. "Your support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivizes AI companies' mass theft of human artists' work." So far, as of the time of writing, around 3,500 people has signed and voiced their support for this letter. It's unclear how many signatures will need to be amassed before action will be taken by Christie's, but it does again bring up the very popular recent topic as to how and where we should use AI technology in the creative space.

Christie's plan for AI art auction sparks backlash from artists

More than 3,000 artists have written to protest against plans by Christie's to auction art created using artificial intelligence in the latest backlash by the creative industries against the threat posed by generative AI models. In a letter to the auction house, the artists expressed "serious concern" that many of the artworks being sold were created using AI models that were known to be trained on copyrighted work without a licence. While many in the creative industries from music to film, media and art have no objection to the development of AI models -- and often use such tools in their own work -- they are worried that many of the most popular do not pay for copyrighted materials. These can be used to train AI models that can replicate or even replace the original work. "These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them," the letter said. "Your support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivises AI companies' mass theft of human artists' work." Christie's inaugural AI art auction, called Augmented Intelligence, claims to be the first artificial intelligence-dedicated sale at a major auction house featuring works by artists using AI models. AI art is a growing area of the market, defined as any art that has been created or enhanced with AI tools. Nicole Sales Giles, director of digital art at Christie's, said AI was "not a substitute for human creativity . . . It enhances the human spectrum of creativity". In response to the letter, Christie's said that "the artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognised in leading museum collections. The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work." Musician and artist Ed Newton-Rex, one of the letter's signatories, said AI companies were using other artists' work without permission or payment, however. "I don't blame artists for using these. But Christie's selling these works for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars is an implicit condoning of the exploitation behind the AI products involved. I find this pretty sickening at a time when so many artists are seeing their livelihoods destroyed by these very same products." The auction highlights the complex debate in the creative industry over AI, with artists divided about the use of AI and whether the technology will become a key tool in the creative process. Other parts of the art community have supported the sale, with some even taking the petition and creating pieces of digital art using the words and images. The argument over technology and art is the latest flashpoint ahead of the conclusion of a consultation into AI and creative industries by the UK government. Under the proposals, the UK government would offer an exemption to copyright laws, letting technology companies use material ranging from music and books to media and photos to train AI models unless the rights holder objects under a "rights reservation" system. These plans have alarmed companies across the music, film making, art and media industries given the "opt out" system could be costly and difficult to police.

Christie's announces AI art auction, and not everyone is pleased | TechCrunch

Fine art auction house, Christie's, has sold AI-generated art before. But soon, it plans to hold its first show dedicated solely to works created with AI, an announcement that has been met with mixed reviews. The auction, which Christie's is calling 'Augmented Intelligence,' will feature artwork from artists including Mat Dryhurst, the founder of AI startup, Spawning AI. A robot that paints live is set to be the exhibition's centerpiece at Christie's Rockefeller Center galleries in New York, beginning February 20. Users on social media were quick to point out that many generative AI tools for art were trained on artists' works without their permission. Critics argued that shows like Augmented Intelligence put this work on a pedestal, at the expense of those creating art by hand. We've reached out to Christie's for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

Thousands of artists call for 'mass theft' AI auction to be cancelled

One of the letter's signatories said AI was "impoverishing so many artists desperately trying to make a living" and questioned why Christie's auction house would condone it. More than 3,000 artists have called for Christie's to cancel its first-ever AI art auction, calling it "mass theft" of human artists' work. The petition urges the New York auction house to call off the event - where pieces range from $10,000 to $250,000 (£8,000 to £202,000) - citing "serious concern" over exploitation of artists. "Many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a licence," the petition says. "These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them." The petition, directed at Christie's, reads: "Your support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivises AI companies' mass theft of human artists' work. "We ask that, if you have any respect for human artists, you cancel the auction." The battleground over training AI models has resulted in a number of lawsuits between companies and creatives alleging copyright was breached in the training process. Christie's said the works in the auction used AI to "enhance" the art. Concerns 'completely justified' One of the petition's leading signatories, British composer Ed Newton-Rex, told Sky News he thinks the letter is "completely justified". He said: "It looks like around nine of the works in the auction were made using AI models that companies built using other artists' work without permission. "I don't blame artists for using AI products that are available on the market, but I question why Christie's would implicitly condone these models by selling these works for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, when the exploitative technology behind them is impoverishing so many artists desperately trying to make a living." 'Bullying' artists The AI-dedicated event, running from 20 February to 5 March, includes work by Refik Anadol, Claire Silver, Sasha Stiles and others. Mat Dryhurst, a British artist whose work features in Christie's auction, told Sky News he did not agree with the artists speaking out against Christie's. He said he "does not find attempts to bully artists in the least bit acceptable". He added: "It is not illegal to use any model to create artwork. "I resent that an important debate that should be focused on companies and state policy is being focused on artists grappling with the technology of our time." Read more: AI summit: rift between regulation and innovation 'Godfather' of AI warns arms race risks A spokesperson for Christie's told Sky News: "The artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognised in leading museum collections. "The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work."

Christie's Is Holding the First Ever Dedicated A.I. Art Sale at a Major Auction House

How you feel about that might just depend on how much human intervention you think is required to make A.I. generated art legitimate. I felt a vague sense of disquietude when I received word from Christie's that it would be hosting the first-ever artificial intelligence-dedicated sale at a major house. Just a little moment of unease. Frankly, it's hard to shush those quiet biases that make a person want to categorize all art into "real art" and "other," as if I have somehow earned the right to make that distinction. Unpacking my kneejerk reaction to the Augmented Intelligence auction, which will be open for bidding from February 20 through March 5, didn't take long. I am a person who makes things, and the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies in creative spheres feels like an existential threat when you're someone who has roped material survival to artistic impulses. Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter Sign Up Thank you for signing up! By clicking submit, you agree to our <a href="http://observermedia.com/terms">terms of service</a> and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime. See all of our newsletters I'm also a realist. Artificial intelligence can write and draw and, tethered to a robotic arm, it can paint, and it can make data so beautiful we put it in museums, but there's always a human being behind the curtain pulling the strings, whether by writing code or dreaming up ideas or otherwise telling A.I. what to do. (For the record, it can also chase glitches, sus out breast cancers better than human doctors and, just maybe, break your porn habit.) I also futz around with artificial intelligence on the regular because I'm not as afraid of A.I. stealing my job as I am of someone who's really good at using A.I. stealing it. When it comes to art, the question we like to think we're grappling with -- beyond how we're going to pay the bills when 'content' supersedes art across all genres of creative output -- is just how much human intervention is necessary to make A.I. generated art palatable to the masses. But some small, possibly also biased studies seem to find that most people actually like A.I. art as long as they think it was made by a human being. Probably because most average Joes want art that looks nice, and today's artificial intelligence tools are more than capable of generating nice-looking pictures, no matter who is at the helm. That's part of the problem, of course. The folks shouting from the virtual rooftops that A.I. art is hot garbage might reference copyright infringement (a very real concern) and artist livelihoods (same), but what it often comes down to is that nagging feeling that using artificial intelligence to make art is automating creativity. Replacing effort. Cheating. Too easy. I should point out that the lots in the Augmented Intelligence sale are described as being created with and not by A.I., which I feel is an important distinction even as I'm not sure where the line between with and by actually lies because I'm a sometimes Luddite and after a while, I lose the thread. But among the artists with works in the Christie's A.I. sale are recent TIME100 A.I. Impact Award recipient Refik Anadol, early A.I. art pioneer Harold Cohen and Alexander Reben, OpenAI's first artist in residence -- none of whom seem like corner-cutters. "The longer it takes to create something, the better it is, whether it be wine, whisky or a work of art," asserted Author, publisher, former pro skateboarder Scott Bourne in a 2024 Observer article that explored whether A.I. is a creative supertool or art imitator. I don't think he's necessarily wrong about the impact of time on quality, but I also don't think he's right to conflate A.I. art with speed. Cohen, for his part, spent decades working on AARON, widely considered to be the earliest A.I. art software. SEE ALSO: At Regen Projects, Doug Aitken Reimagines Nature Through the Lens of the Anthropocene Josh Tyson, who interviewed Bourne, wrote that "generative A.I. has kicked over the barrier of technical training as a means to create art." Here I also have to disagree. Learning to wield a paintbrush is one type of technical training; learning to build datasets is another. I look at what Alexander Reben is doing, and I certainly wouldn't call it easy or a shortcut to creativity. And what is real art, anyway? "I get excited when people think I'm not making 'real art' because it means I'm doing something different and writing my own story," Sougwen Chung told Observer last year. The easy-way-out argument is nothing new, by the way. Charles Baudelaire, in The Mirror of Art, wrote that "the photographic industry was the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies," but more than 160 years later, there are still thousands of phenomenal painters out there putting brush to canvas. The Christie's sale will, according to Nicole Sales Giles, the auction house's VP and director of Digital Art, show "collectors human agency in the age of A.I. in fine art." But you don't have to be a collector to see for yourself and come to your own conclusions, which might differ from mine. The various sculptures, paintings, prints, works on paper, digitally native works, screens and interactive works will be on view at Christie's Rockefeller Center galleries starting on February 20.