AI Portrait Shatters Expectations With $432,500 Sale at Christie's
An algorithm-generated portrait sells for a staggering $432,500 at Christie's, far exceeding initial estimates. The historic auction immediately sparks controversy and plagiarism accusations from other AI artists.
An AI-generated portrait sells at Christie's New York for an astounding $432,500, completely shattering the initial estimate of $7,000 to $10,000. The anonymous phone bidder claims the artwork, titled "Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy," after a brisk six-minute bidding war. This historic sale marks the first time Christie's auctions an algorithm-generated piece, and the final price easily surpasses the accompanying works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
The French art collective Obvious creates the blurry portrait using a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). The group celebrates the auction as a massive victory for AI art and a fantastic opportunity to highlight the broader work of their peers. Obvious specifically praises Ian Goodfellow, the creator of the GAN algorithm, for making this technological achievement possible.
Controversy quickly erupts as prominent AI artists accuse Obvious of unoriginality and code theft. Artist Robbie Barrat alleges that the collective uses his openly published code to produce the famous portrait. Obvious openly admits to using a modified version of Barrat's code and publicly thanks him for his significant influence on their work.