(WS News) – A groundbreaking digital artwork of World War II codebreaker and computer science pioneer Alan Turing has fetched an extraordinary $1.3 million at auction, setting a new record for art created by a humanoid robot.
The piece, titled ‘AI God’, was created by Ai-Da Robot, the world’s first humanoid robot artist, and was sold by renowned auction house Sotheby’s.
Originally estimated to sell for between $120,000 and $180,000, the artwork far exceeded expectations, with 27 bids placed before the online sale concluded on Thursday at 19:00 GMT. The buyer’s identity remains undisclosed.
Sotheby’s described the sale as a historic milestone, marking the first time an artwork created by a robot artist had been sold at auction.
AI God is a large-scale digital portrait of Alan Turing, the British mathematician and logician who is widely regarded as the father of artificial intelligence.
Turing’s work during World War II, most notably his role in cracking the Enigma code at Bletchley Park, was crucial to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
Turing’s legacy also extends to his pioneering ideas in computing, including his design for the first digital computer, which laid the foundations for modern computing and AI.
His contributions have made him an iconic figure in both the tech world and the history of artificial intelligence.
Sotheby’s hailed the sale as a new frontier in the art world, calling it a “benchmark” for AI-generated artworks and underscoring the growing significance of artificial intelligence in creative fields.
The auction house said the sale price for the first artwork by a humanoid robot artist “marks a moment in the history of modern and contemporary art and reflects the growing intersection between AI technology and the global art market”.
