On October 25th, 2018, Christie's (佳士得拍卖行) had a very unusual sale. It sold the first piece of artwork created by artificial intelligence for $432,500.
The painting was created by an AI program written by Obvious, an AI research studio in Paris. Soon questions rang through the media: Is this art? Who is the artist? How about the owner? Are machines now creative, too?
All good questions—but too early. The technology is far from advanced (高级的), as Obvious suggested, because the public is completely confused about what AI is, and what it is able to do.
In fact, the painting was just one of the countless artworks AI could produce. It was the team behind Obvious that chose this one. The team first programmed the AI, and then they chose 15,000 paintings to train the software (软件). Connecting the painting with the algorithm (计算程序) was just a clever marketing tool. AI did not produce the painting on its own at all.
Lots of artists are using the same software as Obvious, but none of them are worried about losing jobs because of AI. As they build the machine themselves and work with it every day, they know how limited it is. What interests the artists is to create works together: the way AI lets them go beyond their natural ability.
Artists also laugh at the idea that AI is creative. It certainly creates things, sometimes in new and successful ways, but it does so without a purpose. It is the artist who shapes its output. "You make a fire and it produces interesting shapes, but in the end the fire is not creative. AI is a glorified (被美化的) campfire," said one of the pioneers of using AI in art.
