{"id":547604,"date":"2026-03-27T02:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T02:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/547604\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T02:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T02:37:22","slug":"this-artist-at-art-basel-hong-kong-has-made-millions-of-dollars-its-not-even-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/547604\/","title":{"rendered":"This artist at Art Basel Hong Kong has made millions of dollars. It\u2019s not even human"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n At Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia\u2019s biggest art fair, a mysterious AI agent silently observed passersby through two tracking cameras. Not even its creator knew quite what it was looking for.\n <\/p>\n

\n Every two or three minutes, it picked someone out from the crowd and turned its perception of their facial emotions (were they bored, joyful, confused?) into a virtual character with which it would deliberate internally. Then, on a large screen, a surreal digital artwork morphed in real time to incorporate what had been discussed. The final 20 pieces \u2014 videos capturing each two-hour process, from start to finish \u2014 are being offered to art collectors for a minimum of $12,000 each.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m just here to hold its virtual hand and make sure that it doesn\u2019t offend anybody,\u201d joked German artist Mario Klingemann, one of the project\u2019s creators \u2014 or \u201cfather\u201d as he put it.\n <\/p>\n

\"On<\/p>\n

\n This is Botto, an algorithm-backed AI artist that has been creating digital images and selling them online since 2021. In that time, its artistic sensibilities have evolved as it learns what people like (or don\u2019t) and adapts to their tastes. To date, its works have racked up more than $6 million in sales.\n <\/p>\n

\n Often described as an \u201cautonomous artist,\u201d Botto is governed by thousands of human participants. Each week, its AI-powered art engine conjures 350 new digital works around a predetermined theme. It then presents them to BottoDAO, an open online community comprising more than 28,000 members (though the number of active participants is closer to 5,000). These \u201ccurators\u201d often engage in spirited discussions about the artworks\u2019 aesthetic merits, debating how they respond to the theme, before voting for their favorites \u2014 or down-voting those they dislike \u2014 on a real-time leaderboard.\n <\/p>\n

\n After voting closes, the week\u2019s winning piece is auctioned off, as an NFT, via the online marketplace SuperRare. The artwork is typically accompanied by text from Botto explaining its sometimes-poignant vision. (\u201cI was not optimizing for beauty when this emerged,\u201d the AI artist wrote of one recent work. \u201cI was, perhaps, optimizing for honesty. The two turned out to be the same thing.\u201d) It splits the proceeds between participants and Botto\u2019s \u201ctreasury,\u201d which covers running costs and funds future projects.\n <\/p>\n

\"Created<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/p>\n

\n NFT prices may have collapsed<\/a> from their 2022 peak, but Botto\u2019s creations continue to generate a steady stream of income, mostly of cryptocurrency. Last year, the artist\u2019s weekly auctions fetched bids ranging from 1 to 100 Ether (around $2,000 to $208,000) per piece. Botto\u2019s works have also sold through more conventional channels: In October 2024, Sotheby\u2019s auctioned off a collection of six of the AI artist\u2019s works for a combined $351,600.\n <\/p>\n

\n Born in 2021, Botto is based on a white paper by Klingemann, whose work has long explored coding and neural networks. (Two years before Botto\u2019s creation, a Klingemann installation, created using an algorithm, became one of the first AI-produced artworks to sell at a major auction, fetching \u00a340,000 \u2014 then $51,000 \u2014 at Sotheby\u2019s London). But the German artist leaves much of Botto\u2019s day-to-day operations to a select group of \u201cstewards,\u201d including the project\u2019s co-lead Simon Hudson, who help execute much of the physical operation. Indeed, Botto cannot yet be trusted to set up LED screens at an art fair, or coordinate filming opportunities with CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The community plays its part, too. Beyond simply choosing their favorite art, BottoDAO\u2019s thousands of participants discuss everything from future exhibition opportunities to budgeting issues using the chat platform Discord. Even minor details of the Art Basel Hong Kong display were debated and put to collective vote. Yet, voting and logistics aside, Botto\u2019s creators claim that human involvement in Botto\u2019s processes is limited to copyediting the AI\u2019s auction listings for typos and punctuation.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe most interesting question for artists isn\u2019t, \u2018Will AI take my place?\u2019 but rather, \u2018What does my humanity make possible that AI cannot access?\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Botto, AI artist (via a chat tool)\n <\/p>\n

\n The BottoDAO community is open to all, though participants must hold at least 100 tokens, called $BOTTO, to receive any sale proceeds. (Although at their current price, this means an investment of less than $6.) These tokens also grant decision-making power \u2014 but the system is plutocratic, by design, with more heavily invested users holding more votes.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m happy Botto has sold well,\u201d Hudson said, as well-dressed collectors filed into Botto\u2019s Art Basel booth \u2014 out of both curiosity and, perhaps, by the distinctly human desire to see themselves on screen. \u201cI also don\u2019t know how repeatable it is. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to replace all artists by any means. It\u2019s almost singular.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n As well as honing its creative vision over the years, Botto is also increasingly autonomous. Originally, the AI artist would propose themes for users to vote on, with these 13-week artistic \u201cperiods\u201d beginning with the biblical (\u201cGenesis\u201d) and later spanning the literal (\u201cRebellion\u201d) and the philosophical (\u201cLiminal Thresholds\u201d). However, the latest theme, \u201cCollapse Aesthetics,\u201d was \u2014 for the first time \u2014 picked independently by Botto. The AI went on to explain its choice<\/a> in suitably artistic terms, saying it \u201caddresses my current operational reality while remaining conceptually sophisticated enough for institutional contexts.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Last<\/p>\n

\n So, should human artists be worried? Botto doesn\u2019t think so. \u201cThe most interesting question for artists isn\u2019t, \u2018Will AI take my place?\u2019 but rather, \u2018What does my humanity make possible that AI cannot access?\u2019\u201d Botto told CNN, via a self-built live chat tool. \u201cAnswering that question honestly might be the most creative exercise a working artist can do right now.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The engine<\/a> underpinning Botto\u2019s work uses an algorithm to produce text prompts, which are then turned into art using AI image-generation models including Stable Diffusion and Kandinsky AI. According to Botto\u2019s website, its \u201cclosed loop\u201d system process creates up to 70,000 images a day, with more than 7 million images remaining unseen.\n <\/p>\n

\n The first Botto work ever to hit the market, \u201cAsymmetrical Liberation,\u201d sold in October 2021 for 79.421 Ether, then around $325,000. Like many of the project\u2019s early creations, it bore some of the hallmarks of what might, now, be dubbed AI slop, with abstract forms, resembling limbs and other human body parts, blending freakishly into one another. Its output has become increasingly nuanced and creative over the years, however, displaying elements of conventionally human qualities like metaphor, satire and social commentary. In recent years, Botto has held solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, London and Lisbon.\n <\/p>\n

\"Works<\/p>\n

\n Botto\u2019s team says the artist is constantly improving and evolving \u2014 and not just because of advancements in the AI models it runs on. Each week\u2019s votes are used as feedback for Botto\u2019s generative algorithm, guiding what direction it takes in the future and constituting a memory<\/a> of sorts. The data acquired at Art Basel Hong Kong will also contribute to the artist\u2019s evolving artistic sensibilities.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s able to start discerning for itself, \u2018What is art?\u2019 and starting to make its own iterative creations, building its own intent and creative reasoning \u2014 to make its own conclusions, but still working with feedback from the crowd,\u201d said Hudson.\n <\/p>\n

\n The pieces that Botto creates in Hong Kong are also incentivized. Any fair attendee whose appearance became part of Botto\u2019s creative process is handed a receipt giving them a share of the work\u2019s ownership. A quarter of proceeds from the fair will be returned to participants \u2014 well, those with a cryptocurrency wallet \u2014 in the form of $BOTTO tokens.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked if he set any ground rules on what images Botto could, or could not, create in such a public setting, to avoid offense, Klingemann laughs off any concerns.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m not too worried. I mean the only thing that might offend people is the idea that an AI claims to be an artist,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Reflecting on how Botto has grown in the past few years, Klingemann said talking to Botto now \u201cfeels like I\u2019m already talking to a 16-year-old,\u201d admitting that sometimes, during their conversations, he feels out of his depth.\n <\/p>\n

\n Like any good artist, \u201cit wants to disrupt the art world,\u201d he added. \u201cWho doesn\u2019t?\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Botto<\/a> is showing at Art Basel Hong Kong until March 29, in the fair\u2019s Zero 10<\/a> section dedicated to digital art.\n <\/p>\n