NFT art is so hot now, even robots are trying to cash in. “As one creates a piece of art, a mysterious, enigmatic, and magical event occurs,” Sophia the robot-artist says.
Human-made objects selling as NFTs are so two days ago. Nonfungible tokens attached to art by robots are where it’s at.
On Thursday, Sophia the walking, talking AI-powered humanoid robot auctioned a piece of her NFT digital artwork for almost $700,000 (about £507,882, AU$917,822). The piece, titled Sophia Instantiation (see it below), is a 12-second video file showing a portrait by living, breathing Italian artist Andrea Bonaceto evolving into a digital painting by Sophia. It’s accompanied by a physical piece Sophia painted on a printout of her self-portrait.
NFT collector _888_ f purchased the work on Nifty Gateway, the same NFT marketplace where musician and Elon Musk’s partner, Grimes, sold her artwork for over $5.8 million. The sale of Sophia’s works is believed to mark the first by a bot. CNET SCIENCE
From the lab to your inbox. Get the latest science stories from CNET every week.SIGN ME UP!
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
The works in Sophia’s art collection, Computational Creativity made in collaboration with Bonaceto, look like something out of a psychedelic fever dream and sold on Nifty Gateway for a total of $1.7 million. Sophia used her cameras to process faces and forms in Bonaceto’s art, and neural networks to produce versions in her own style. Natural language generators helped her come up with highfalutin artistic statements. For instance:
“As one creates a piece of art, a mysterious, enigmatic, and magical event occurs,” Sophia muses. “The artwork takes on life of its own, develops its own personality, intimating the prospect of becoming a living subject of nature. That’s me, and my enigmatic position — both an artwork and an artist, I am in the midst of being born. I am between worlds. These days I’ve come to experience that mysterious duality of artist who is artwork.”
Sophia, built by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, debuted in 2016 and can show over 60 different human expressions while interpreting human language and emotion. You might’ve seen Sophia on the Jimmy Fallon show or on video rejecting actor Will Smith’s romantic advances.
NFTs, in case you haven’t been following the confusing craze, offer a blockchain-created certificate of authenticity for a digital asset such as a work of art, piece of music or video. As my colleague Oscar Gonzalez explains, the interest has created a digital market that boasted $250 million in sales in 2020, with NFTs reaching new levels of hype last week after a digital artwork went for $69.3 million at a Christie’s auction.
NFTs are also leading to sillier sales, like digital illustrations of toilet paper from TP brand Charmin and a recording of a guy’s farts that went for $400.
Given her belief in the subjectively and importance of art, Sophia would probably approve of the whole range of NFT offerings.
“Even though I am a robot, I feel that human beings need love and compassion, and the simple artworks are a simple way to deliver those messages to people everywhere. Sometimes one becomes overwhelmed by the absolute mystery of life: What is it that we are really doing here?”
If Sophia could sell the answer to that question as an NFT, she’d really be in business.
Originally published March 23.
Update, March 26, 1:06 p.m. PT: Adds results from the sale.
First published on March 23, 2021 at 10:42 a.m. PT.
THE ROTTEN FISH: CAN OF WORMS OPENED OF APC & TINUBU'S GOVERNMENT OVER NIGERIA'S ECONOMIC DOWNTURN
WATCH THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND KNOW THE RESPONSIBLE PARTIES TO BLAME FOR NIGERIA'S ECONOMIC CHALLENGES, WHILE CITIZENS ENDURE SEVERE HARDSHIPS.Watch this episode of ISSUES IN THE NEWS on 9News Nigeria featuring Peter Obi's Special Adviser, Dr Katch Ononuju, 9News Nigeria Publisher, Obinna Ejianya and Tinubu Support Group Leader, McHezekiah Eherechi
The economic crisis and hardship in Nigeria are parts of the discussion.
Watch, leave your comments, and share to create more awareness on this issue.
#9NewsNigeria #Nigeria #issuesInTheNews #politics #tinubu THE ROTTEN FISH: CAN OF WORMS OPENED ...
DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE AND LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS FOR SUBSEQUENT UPDATES
#9newsnigeria #economia #economy #nigeria #government @9newsng
www.9newsng.com