VOA慢速英语--First AI-Created Art Work Sells for $432,500 in New York

 

A work of art created by artificial intelligence (AI) has been sold by a major art seller for the first time.

The print sold for an unexpectedly large amount of $432,500. The artwork was bought during an auction¹ Thursday at Christie’s, an art house, in New York City. Officials had predicted it would sell for between $7,000 and $10,000. The buyer was not immediately announced.

In a website post, Christie’s said the AI-created work was the first ever sold by a major auction house. It praised the sale as a signal of “the arrival of AI art on the world auction stage.”

The artwork, called “Portrait of Edmond Belamy,” was made by a machine learning algorithm. The AI system was created by members of an art collective called Obvious in Paris, France.

It shows the portrait of a man, looking similar to subjects shown in historical paintings. A description by Christie’s noted² that since the man appears to be wearing dark clothes with a white collar, he is possibly a “man of the church.”

Christie’s described some differences of the AI-created work compared to other art it sells. For example, it said some parts of the face were not as clearly defined³ as those painted by artists. Also, some parts of the print were left empty.

However, Christie’s sale organizer Richard Lloyd said the piece was very similar to many others sold over many years. While the piece was not painted by a major artist, “it is exactly the kind of artwork we have been selling for 250 years,” Lloyd said in a statement.

Three creators from the art group Obvious cooperated on the process that made the print. First, they put a collection of 15,000 portraits into a machine learning system. The portraits were painted by artists from the time period between the 14th and 20th centuries.

Then a tool called the “Generator⁴” made a new image based on the information entered into the system. After that, another tool, called a “Discriminator,” attempted to find differences between the human-made image and one created by the Generator.

“The aim is to fool the Discriminator into thinking that the new images are real-life portraits. Then we have a result,” Obvious collective member Hugo Caselles-Dupré said in a statement.

Obvious has created a series of AI-produced art works. Caselles-Dupré said the team has experimented with other kinds of historical paintings. These included subjects from nature to paintings of the whole human body.

But the results always came out better with portraits. This, he said, supports the idea that AI algorithms are not just good at copying other works, but can actually “emulate⁵ creativity.”

Christie’s admits that artwork created by machine learning methods leaves open questions about who or what should get credit for creating the pieces.

“If the artist is the one that creates the image, then that would be the machine,” Caselles-Dupré said. ‘If the artist is the one that holds the vision and wants to share the message, then that would be us.”

Ahmed Elgammal is director of the Art and Artificial Intelligence Lab at Rutgers University in New Jersey⁶. He told Christie’s he believes ownership of AI artwork needs to be shared because humans and machines both take part in the process.

“You could say that, at this point, it is a collaboration⁷ between two artists - one human, one a machine. And that leads me to think about the future, in which AI will become a new medium for art.”

In the case of the Portrait of Edmond Belamy, only one “artist” appears at the bottom, where the signed name usually appears. This print does not contain a human’s name. Instead, it lists part of the actual machine learning algorithm that created it.

I’m Bryan Lynn.

Words in This Story

artificial intelligence – n. ability of a machine to use and analyze⁸ data in an attempt to reproduce⁹ human behavior

print – n. picture produced on paper

auction – n. sale in which things are sold to the person who offers the most money

algorithm – n. set of steps that are followed in order to solve a mathematical problem or to complete a computer process

portrait – n. painting, drawing, or photograph of a person

collar – n. the part of a shirt, coat, etc. that goes around a person’s neck

emulate – v. to try to be like someone or something that you admire or think is successful

collaboration – n. the activity of working together to create or achieve a common goal

1 auction   

n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖

参考例句：

• They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
• They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。

2 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

3 defined   

adj 定义的; 清晰的

参考例句：

• These categories are not well defined. 这些类别划分得不太明确。
• The powers of a judge are defined by law. 法官的权限是由法律规定的。

4 generator   

n.发电机，发生器

参考例句：

• All the while the giant generator poured out its power.巨大的发电机一刻不停地发出电力。
• This is an alternating current generator.这是一台交流发电机。

5 emulate   

v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿

参考例句：

• You must work hard to emulate your sister.你必须努力工作，赶上你姐姐。
• You must look at the film and try to emulate his behavior.你们必须观看这部电影，并尽力模仿他的动作。

6 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

7 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

8 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

9 reproduce   

v.生育，繁殖，复制，重做

参考例句：

• The machine can reproduce a key in two minutes.这机器能在两分钟内复制一把钥匙。
• The picture will reproduce well.这照片会印得很清楚。