Ai-Da (robot)

2024: $1.1 million sale of first painting

On November 7, 2024, at the Sotheby's auction, the world's first painting created by a humanoid robot went under the hammer. We are talking about the work "God AI. Portrait of Alan Turing "(A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing), which sold for about $1.1 million.

The painting was painted by the Ai-Da robot, developed in 2019 by contemporary art specialist Aidan Meller in collaboration with the Cornish IT company Engineered Arts. It is claimed that Ai-Da is the first ultra-realistic robot artist capable of independently creating various works of art, in particular paintings and sculptures. The machine is made in the image of a woman and is named after Ada Lovelace, who is considered the first programmer in history.

Ai-Da can self-learn and master new art techniques by analyzing paintings created by human artists. In addition, the robot is able to conduct a dialogue with the interlocutor, during which it not only answers simple questions, but also expresses its own opinion and judgments in the field of art. Ai-Da proposed creating the image of the English mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing during a discussion on the topic "AI for good." The robot was asked what style, color, content, tone and texture he wanted to use, after which the AI artist, using eye cameras, appreciated Turing's image and painted the picture.

It was assumed that a portrait with dimensions of 162.5 × 230 cm will be sold at a price of $120 thousand to $180 thousand. However, the total cost was much higher: during the auction, 27 bets were made with a result of $1.08 million.

The record sale price of the robot artist's first work to be auctioned marks an important moment in the history of contemporary creativity and reflects the growing interplay between technology and the global art market, Sotheby's said in a statement.[1]

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