CNN
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An AI robot painting by British computer scientist and codebreaker Alan Turing has sold for $1.08 million, making it the most valuable work of art of a humanoid robot to ever change hands at auction. It raises new questions about the role of artificial intelligence in art.

The sale price far exceeded the pre-auction estimate of $120,000-$180,000, with the work attracting 27 bids before going to an undisclosed buyer, according to Sotheby’s, which handled the sale in New York.

The painting, titled ‘AI God: Portrait of Alan Turing’, was created by Ai-Da, a humanoid robot artist with a black bob and robotic arms, who communicates using large language models and was invented by British gallery owner Aidan Meller.

Turing’s work laid the foundation for the development of early computers and helped the Allies decrypt German communications during World War II. He took his own life in 1954 after being convicted under Victorian-era homophobic laws and subjected to chemical castration.

Eighty decades after Turing predicted the rise of computers and AI, Meller hopes that Ai-Da and his artworks can act as a “kind of mirror of where we are going.”

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“It seems like a good time to think about the dawning reality of what is actually happening in society,” he told CNN on Friday.

“We are entering a post-human world where decision making is not human, it is becoming increasingly algorithmic because we have seen that it is reliable… Ai-Da’s artwork really shows you the potential future of where we could go,” he added to it.

The staggering amount that Ai-Da’s artworks have fetched at auction marks a change in the way AI art is viewed and valued in the art market – a shift that Meller compares to the invention of the camera.

“There is a somewhat apocalyptic view of AI art that wipes out everyone. The camera has changed the art world a lot… I think it’s about the same, (but) it’s more than that… because AI can be done in many different ways, where the camera was just a physical representation of light, so it’s more unique,” ​​he said.

However, not everyone sees this as such a milestone. For Alastair Sooke, chief art critic of the British newspaper The Telegraph, it represents just a “very refined, dressed-up version of those periodic news stories about farm animals that can supposedly paint like Pablo Picasso.”

Ai-Da launched in 2019 after Meller worked with a robotics company in Cornwall, England to build it.

“It challenges what it is to be human, it is bigger than just the art question,” said Meller. “I think Ai-Da is a foreshadowing of where a human could go… so (she) is very disturbing by her existence, but she’s just symptomatic of what’s happening, she’s not doing it, she’s just one symbol of.”

Before Ai-Da starts her artwork, she discusses with her creators what things she would like to paint. “In this case, we had a discussion with her about ‘AI for good,’ which led to Ai-Da bringing up Alan Turing as a key figure in the history of AI that she wanted to paint,” Meller said in a statement.

After answering questions about the painting’s style, content, tone and texture, Ai-Da used cameras in his eyes to look at a photo of Turing and made preliminary sketches of him. It then painted fifteen individual paintings of parts of Turing’s face, each of which is different depending on how the algorithm interprets the photo.

Everyone needed the robot for about six to eight hours and then were asked how to put it together. Ultimately, three were chosen, as well as a painting of Turing’s Bombe Machine, the name for the code-breaking device he built, which appears in the background.

Since Ai-Da’s arm can only paint on a small 12″ x 16″ canvas, the final image is printed onto a larger canvas using a 3D texture printer. Sotheby’s noted that “there is no change in the underlying image in this process.”

The way Ai-Da paints has changed since it was first created, Meller said, as the agency that owns it is “crawling… and up,” and the technology is constantly being updated to stay ahead.

“The main value of my work is the ability to serve as a catalyst for dialogue on emerging technologies,” Ai-Da said in a statement.

“’AI God,’ a portrait of pioneer Alan Turing, invites viewers to ponder the divine nature of AI and computing while considering the ethical and societal implications of these developments. Alan Turing recognized this potential and is staring at us as we race towards this future,” the robot added.