The work “Threshold of Reverie” produced by Botto.
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Generative artificial intelligence is making waves across industries and services, from finance to human resources, and spending on the technology is growing rapidly.
The art world is no exception – some artists use it to help create their works, while others are shocked by its capabilities.
Now, a new artificial intelligence “artist” is causing a stir, raising core questions surrounding the nature of art, its creation, and ownership.
Botto, described on his website as a “decentralized autonomous artist,” has produced about 150 images or “works,” which together have received high ratings. over US$5 million From 2021 via auction.
Simon Hudson, operator and co-head of Botto, said in a video call with CNBC: “If Botto has a purpose, it is to be an artist first, and I think the second is to be a successful artist.
“You can look at a successful artist from many different perspectives: commercial success, financial success, cultural success, spiritual success – if it really has that kind of profound impact on people, ” he said.
How Poto works
Designed by software collective ElevenYellow and German artist and computer programmer Mario Klingemann, Botto generates images based on algorithmically generated prompts.
Hudson told CNBC via email that the prompt was initially given a rough idea and “without any specific aesthetic guidance, it started by combining random words, phrases and symbols… to generate images.” Symbols such as the plus and minus signs are used to add or subtract emphasis, he said.
“Expose Stream”, images generated by artificial intelligence called Botto. It was sold by Sotheby’s in New York in October 2024 for $144,000.
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Botto generates about 70,000 images every week and presents 350 of them to a group of about 5,000 people called BottoDAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). BottoDAO votes to decide which image will pass ultra rare An irreplaceable token auction platform.
anyone can vote Parts produced by Botto Free, Hudson said. But in order to “fully participate in the economy,” people in the DAO buy Botto tokens, and in return they receive points to spend or vote on Botto’s output, Hudson said. “There’s no passive income. You have to be involved and help train Boto,” said Hudson.
Half of the auction proceeds go to BottoDAO voters, and the other half goes to Botto’s “treasury” to pay for server and other operating costs. One Botto token is equivalent to a voting point, and rewards are distributed proportionally – and are distributed regardless of which image an individual voted for.
Botto then uses the voting data to help it decide what to produce next, and the process continues.
“Machine Artist”
Klingemann believes that in the near future, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, “‘machine artists’ will be able to create more interesting work than humans,” a post on his website. One of Klingemann’s works became the first artificial intelligence work auctioned by Sotheby’s in Europe, with an auction price of £40,000 in 2019.
The image produced by Botto will be on display at Sotheby’s New York in October 2024.
Boto | Sotheby’s
The value of Poto images appears to be increasing, Hudson said.
For two early images auctioned during a lull in the AI art market, BottoDAO gave a reserve price of about $13,000 to $15,000, but they were not sold. However, at an October sale at Sotheby’s in New York, the same images – “Expose Stream” and “Exorbitant Stage” – sold for a combined $276,000, said Hudson. Boto too third bestseller Total sales on the SuperRare platform last year as of December 12.
Authorship issue
Is Botto an artist in his own right? “It’s a perception issue,” said Hudson. “Of course, Botto is now a collaboration between machines and people. The human hand is definitely there, but this setup allows Botto to keep the central role of authorship,” he said.
Hudson said Boto has the potential to change the way people think about art and artists. “With Botto, it shatters the myth of the lone genius artist and shows that a work of art is actually a collective…meaning-making process. This becomes even more important when you have large amounts of AI-generated content. “A process,” he said.
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