Thousands of artists have signed a letter calling for the auction house Christie’s to cancel an auction in which many of the works have been created using artificial intelligence, calling the artwork and the selling of it “mass theft.”
Thousands of artists are trying to get the auction house Christie’s to cancel the sale of art that was created using artificial intelligence. The artists are stating that the technology utilized to create the AI artworks are committing “mass theft.”
The Augmented Intelligence auction is described by Christie’s as “a groundbreaking auction highlighting the breadth and quality of AI Art. The sale includes remarkable works from some of the most innovative minds — 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.”
The auction is also described as the first AI-dedicated sale by a major auctioneer and features 20 lots with prices ranging from $10,000 to $250,000.
In an open letter penned to the Auction house and the two individuals responsible for the auction itself, Nicole Sales Giles and Sebastian Sanchez, 3,000 individuals are calling for the cancellation of the event. The letter states: “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.”
Christie’s stated that “the auction redefines the evolution of art and technology, exploring human agency in the age of AI within fine art. From robotics to GANs to interactive experiences, artists incorporate and collaborate with artificial intelligence in a variety of mediums including paintings, sculptures, prints, digital art and more.” The auction is set to go from February 20th to March 5th.
The letter called out the auction house, claiming that they’re “support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivizes AI companies’ mass theft of human artists’ work.”
This discrepancy encapsulates a debate that started when artificial intelligence became more heavily integrated into modern technology within recent years. It brings up questions of ethics regarding the use of copyrighted works to train AI models beyond just the art world. Copyrighted published written works are also used to train chatbots. Music labels, authors, publishers, artists, and more have been entangled in debates and lawsuits over the use of their work to train the technology.
A spokesperson for Christie’s stated that for this showing and auction, “in most cases” the AI used to create the works was based on the artists’ “own inputs.”
“The artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognized 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.”
One signatory of the letter who was a key figure in the campaign by creative professionals for protection of their work, British composer Ed Newton-Rex. He said that at least nine of the works in the auction used models trained on other artists’ work.
On the other end, Mat Dryhurst, a British artist whose work is featured in the show, said that he rejects the criticisms of the letter. Dryhurst and his wife, Holly Herndon, have a work called xhairymutantx in the auction with an estimated price of between $70,000 and $90,000.
Dryhurst told the Guardian: “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.”
“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,” he said.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
