These days, you can’t turn around without interacting with some kind of artificial intelligence, or AI, as we all know it. It can be a very complicated concept for some, but there are simple ways of expressing it. Essentially, AI encompasses a range of technologies that enable a computer to mimic how the human brain learns, understands, solves problems, makes decisions, and even creates content.
First, we must understand that AI scares many people because it’s challenging to comprehend and brings up visions of robot overlords and machines taking over. No one wants a world devoid of human emotion or human beings reduced to artificially created interaction programmed in lines of code rather than organic human thought.
There is some value, however, mostly with large amounts of data. The quantum computing part of AI, where programmers feed machines massive amounts of information to machines that analyze it, is excellent for harnessing the power of raw data that is so vast that powerful machines are needed to parse it all into a cohesive and valuable whole.
Can Fine Art Be High Tech?
Can you apply AI principles to art, though? Can you take The Starry Night‘s glow or the Mona Lisa‘s gravitas and feed that into a bunch of software code to develop a description, an interpretation, or an appraisal? Some are already giving it a go, but the art world is abuzz with recent efforts to incorporate AI into the fine art space. A recent Christie’s auction, Augmented Intelligence, featured over twenty lots created with AI technology. Christie’s stated, “This sale is the first ever artificial intelligence-dedicated sale at a major auction house. The offerings include more than 20 lots from pioneering artists working at the intersection of art and technology.”
WorthPoint spoke to art advisor Hailey Widrig of Art Partners Advisory in Paris, France. Widrig has spent part of her career in art and part in private equity, so she understands the allure of beautiful artwork and the particular trends and history that can make some paintings an asset class collectible. She understands the landscape of fine art collecting and was able to explain how AI is impacting that space.
WorthPoint: Thank you, Hailey, for speaking with us about this new trend. Can you explain what the AI role is becoming in appraisals? Is it a helpful tool to make appraisals more objective, or does it then open galleries, owners, and collectors to other issues?
Hailey Widrig: You’re welcome. AI is being marked as a tool for both appraisers and clients of appraisers. The issue with this is the limitations of AI within the toolkit of an appraiser. At the same time, some argue that using AI makes them more neutral or provides insight that would otherwise be overlooked. These arguments are flawed, in my opinion.
Neutrality is central to the rules of conduct in performing appraisals. To perform appraisals in compliance with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) appraisers must act with neutrality. AI does not augment adherence to the rules of USPAP and as we have seen with instances of machine learning producing biased outcomes. AI is a tool that can only be as good as its training and supplied information. It is both biased and dependent on third parties.
In addition to acting with neutrality, appraisers must also formulate and provide reasonable opinions of current or past value, often providing comparable examples to support their opinions. While AI is good at scraping past data from the internet, it cannot form an opinion, and I personally do not use it in my work.
WP: How do copyrights and other legal issues mesh with AI technology? Are companies scanning and uploading famous (and even not so famous, but still copyrighted/IP of others) to train AI appraisals or art creation software?
HW: A copyright attorney would know the details, but for evaluating and pricing art, appraisal reports must be signed by the appraiser; USPAP defines a signature as: “personalized evidence indicating authentication of the work performed by the appraiser and the acceptance of the responsibility for content, analyses, and the conclusions in the report.” (p.6). The use of AI in preparing appraisals is complicated from a legal perspective. Under USPAP, the person signing the appraisal report and certification is responsible for the contents of their report, including their decision to rely on information that may have been provided by another individual to support their research. However, AI is not considered a legally responsible entity, so it is unable to sign for or take responsibility for the information in an appraisal report. A human would still be required to sign an AI-produced appraisal report.
Considering the points above, the use of AI in completing appraisal reports opens the doors to a myriad of legal considerations we have not created a framework to contend with at this point.
WP: The recent Christie’s auction that contained only works created with AI was controversial, to say the least. An open letter to Christie’s, signed by over 6,500 artists and others, explained some of the issues. What are the main concerns about the good and bad of AI in the art world?
HW: AI certainly has the possibility to be used for both good and bad; the uproar about the Christie’s sale is related to this— the artworks being sold were trained on the work of other artists without their permission or payment.
Just as there are deepfakes of people, I’m sure the same could be made of artworks. For the moment, this seems to be limited to internet memes bringing famous paintings to life. Given the physical nature of painting or sculpture, it might be more complicated to create a real-world fake of these famous objects using AI, but not impossible.
Moving Forward
It was only a matter of time before the first lots of AI-created works went under the hammer. Will there be more? Probably, but the reaction of artists and collectors surrounding the Christie’s sale was loud and proud, which will likely continue as well.
As always, collectors and art enthusiasts must research any art they are considering acquiring, especially high-end pieces. It’s impossible to know if AI pieces will hold their value in the coming years, and as the technology improves, so could the chances of fraud and copyright issues.
Brenda Kelley Kim lives in the Boston area. She is the author of Sink or Swim: Tales From the Deep End of Everywhere and writes a weekly syndicated column for The Marblehead Weekly News/Essex Media Group. When not writing or walking her snorty pug, Penny, she enjoys yard sales, flea markets, and badminton.
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