This is yet another week when artificial intelligence proves it’s here to challenge human-created artworks and images. As part of its new auction, Christie’s invited 32 artists to showcase and auction their works, including AI-generated paintings and photographs. Titled Augmented Intelligence, this showcase has stirred controversy within the art world and, despite that, fetched a whopping price under the hammer. But with all this, it also raises a serious question: Are half-baked AI-generated images really where the future is headed?
The Backlash
When Christie’s announced this auction, a letter was issued and signed by over 6000 people, including photographers and artists who were unhappy with the auction house. The concise letter points out how these AI generators are “trained on copyrighted work without a license” and how the companies who created these models often “exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them.” Of course, the letter did not result in Christie’s canceling the auction, and the outrage fell on deaf ears. However, one must remember that Christie’s was also the first auction house to sell an AI-generated portrait in 2018, which fetched $432,500.
Highest Bids
This year, the Augmented Intelligence auction garnered $792,000, and the auction house saw a whole new set of buyers. Gen Z and Millennials made up half of the buyer’s list. The AI-generated moving image that fetched the highest price under the hammer was an artwork created using over 1.2 million images from the International Space Station. Titled Machine Hallucinations – ISS Dream A by Refik Anadol, this piece fetched $277,200.
Per the artist’s statement, Anadol has been working with AI models such as DCGAN, PGAN, and StyleGAN, which help him “interpret collective visual memories of space, nature, and urban environments.” Once the images have been processed by AI, it then creates “surreal dreamscapes that bridge data, memory, and imagination.” However, this artwork, like the others, is supposed to help humans “envision” a new world.
Another AI-generated image that fetched a great price was Embedded Studies 1 & 2. Created by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, it fetched $94,500 and was also a part of the 2024 Whitney Biennial. For this work, their idea was to showcase how AI showcases the images of people online and how much control one has over their digital pictures. Furthermore, it is also aimed at raising questions about how institutions such as museums can shape what AI shows online.
The Implications for Photographers
In an interview with Artnet, some artists further explained how they use their AI models to create their works. Others argue that these AI-generated images are created by humans, which nullifies what the letter states. Either way, the creators of these artworks are forgetting the impact on photographers. For starters, the livelihoods of commercial and stock photographers will gradually become nil. If there are ways to cut corners, any company, agency, or client would want to achieve maximum efficiency at the lowest rate. This means you cut out the cost of a studio, equipment, photographers, image editors, etc.
But that is not all; by fuelling the AI flame, these creators further reinforce the idea that AI learning models are the future. Sure, you can be a purist and stick to the traditional form of photography, but AI will allow you to “imagine the unimaginable.” Honestly, a quick glance at the images and you see they appear more like artworks than photographs themselves, thus defeating the purpose of what photography is. Again, it’s not that photography never had manipulation; it did for ages, but when that was done, it was done with the use of real materials until Photoshop came in. Even with the latter, people still needed their own material, like photographs, to create something else. And often, it would use pictures of one’s own works. AI images, on the other hand, are simply dependent on prompts and data sets, thus proving that it will have a feed of its own garbage to work later on.
Others argue that these AI-generated images are created by humans, which nullifies what the letter states.
Platforms such as Christie’s or Getty Museum have been institutions that people look up to and respect. With such institutions giving space to AI and stating this work is still human, it is equivalent to the gun laws in the United States. Nobody wants to change the laws, but they will call for better protection of students. It is an endless loop, with no real outcome. Institutionalizing AI as an art form of some sci-fi human meets machine framework does not help us in any way other than urging tech companies to fund such tech and use images without consent to perfect the models.
Furthermore, the idea throughout has been to adapt to the changing times or be left behind. However, the drawback is that AI slop will further make one except the surreal in real photographs too, which will impact photographers in the long term. As disheartening as this sounds at the moment, the only way out of this is the intervention of policymakers, which can only happen if we protest in numbers. Otherwise, you may simply have to watch your photographs being a part of someone else’ artwork.