Thousands sign open letter to cancel AI art auction at Christie’s
4000 people have signed an open letter to Christie’s New York urging them to stop the upcoming auction of art generated by artificial intelligence.
This is the first major auction solely dedicated to AI art, claiming to copyright the work of human artists without authorisation.
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.”
Christie’s Augmented Intelligence auction is estimated to draw in $600,000 from sales of works including those from artists including Refik Anadol, Harold Cohen and Alexander Reben.
The letter, which started circulating on February 8th, called for the halt of the auction, which included light boxes and screens, sculptures, paintings and prints, up for sale from late February to early March.
Program companies like Midjourney and Dall-E have already faced multiple lawsuits as artists claim that the AI programmes train models without their permission or financial compensation. Among these artists are Karla Ortiz and Kelly McKeran, who filed lawsuits in 2023, claiming that their work was stolen to train AI models without their consent. However, in response, the technology companies have cited fair use.
A Christie’s spokesperson has responded to the open letter, stating, “The artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognized in leading museum collections and are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work.”
Sarp Kerem Yavuz, an artist whose work is included in the Christie’s sale, said the idea that AI-generated art is theft is based on the misunderstanding that, “most AI-generated images result from the combination of millions — literally millions — of images, which means no single artist can claim that an image of a meadow, a heroic knight, a cat or a flower was based on their specific creation”.
The letter coincides with the AI Action Summit, which is happening this week in Paris. The United States and the United Kingdom are two major countries refusing to sign the agreement to make AI technology “inclusive and sustainable,” which has been backed by 60 other nations.
