Thousands of People Are Calling for Christie’s to Cancel Its AI Art Auction
The use of artificial intelligence has been a hot-button issue, and now the debate is bubbling over to the art market.
Thousands of people have signed an open letter urging Christie’s New York to cancel its upcoming auction, billed as the first AI-dedicated sale at a major auction house, The Art Newspaper reported. The Augmented Intelligence event, scheduled to run from February 20 to March 5, is estimated to generate over $600,000 and will feature works from artists such as Refik Anadol, Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst, and Claire Silver, to name a few. Among the more than 20 lots will be NFTs, digital art, sculptures, and prints, reflecting the growing prominence of AI-driven creativity.
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“AI technology is undoubtedly the future, and its connection to creativity will become increasingly important,” Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s director of digital art, said in a press statement.
According to the outlet, the online letter, which is addressed to Giles and digital art specialist Sebastian Sanchez, made its way around on the internet over the weekend shortly after Christie’s announced the sale. In it, the authors claim that by supporting this auction, Christie’s is contributing to the mass theft of artists’ intellectual property, as the AI programs rely on vast databases of unlicensed artwork to learn and produce new content using copyrighted material without the consent or compensation of the original human artists.
“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,” the letter reads. “Your support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivizes AI companies’ mass theft of human artists’ work.”
The debate over AI-generated art has escalated as AI technology continues to advance rapidly. While technology companies defend their use of copyrighted material under the “fair use” doctrine, which permits certain uses of copyrighted works without permission, many artists have filed lawsuits claiming their work was unfairly used to train AI models. As a result, the legal landscape surrounding copyright and AI is in flux.
A recent ruling from the U.S. Copyright Office added further complexity to the debate. The office clarified that human artists can copyright works created using AI tools, but that purely AI-generated material is not eligible for copyright protection. This ruling highlights the legal challenges posed by the integration of AI in creative fields.
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