The “world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist” has sold a portrait of Alan Turing – the codebreaking trailblazer of modern computer science – for over $1 million. The sale marks the first work of art by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction (although, technically, the money will go into the pockets of the robot’s human creator).

The painting, titled “A.I. God”, went under the hammer on Thursday as part of Sotheby’s Digital Art Sale in New York. Predicted to only sell for $120,000 to $180,000, the artwork went to an anonymous buyer for a colossal $1.3 million.

The artist behind the work is Ai-Da, a humanoid robot named after Ada Lovelace, often called the “world’s first computer programmer.” The 19th-century mathematician was one of the first people to recognize the potential of computers to go beyond mere calculation, envisioning their application in music, art, and more.

With the aid of artificial intelligence (AI), Ai-Da analyzes photographs of Alan Turing and processes how it wishes to approach its own artwork. 

“We converse with Ai-Da, using her A.I. language model, about what she would like to paint. In this instance, we had a discussion with her about ‘A.I. for good’ which led to Ai-Da’ bringing up Alan Turing as a key person in the history of A.I. that she wanted to paint,” Aidan Meller, Director of the Ai-Da Robot Project, said in a statement seen by IFLScience.

“We then discuss with Ai-Da how she would like to paint Alan Turing. We ask Ai-Da questions around style, colour, content, tone, texture and so on. Ai-Da then uses the cameras in her eyes to look at a picture of Alan Turing alongside her A.I. drawing and painting algorithms and her robotic arm to create preliminary sketches followed by several paintings of Alan Turing,” explained Meller.

It then physically applies acrylic and oil paint onto a canvas, with each painting taking about six to eight hours to complete. For this project, Ai-Da painted 15 individual portraits of Turing’s face. Three of these 15 images were then picked by Ai-Da before being scanned and uploaded onto a computer where the final image was assembled. The end product was then applied to a large canvas using a 3D textured printer.

While much of the process is controlled by Ai-Da, the robot does receive a helping hand from humans.

“Studio assistants then add texture onto the 3D printed canvas of the artwork – this is because Ai-Da’s robotic painting arm is unable to stretch to a large scale canvas and is limited to A3 size canvas. There is no change to the underlying image in this process. Ai-Da then adds marks and texture onto the final canvas in order to complete the artwork. The positioning and color of these marks are decided by Ai-Da based on having a conversation about what she wants to do,” notes Meller.

Ai-Da is the brainchild of Meller, an art dealer and gallery director by trade, although it was built by Engineered Arts, the UK-based robotics group behind Ameca, one of the “world’s most advanced human-shaped robots.” It was programmed internationally, with her AI capabilities being developed by PhD students and professors at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham.

On top of being a creator, Ai-Da is considered a work of conceptual art in itself, designed to raise questions about AI, agency, and the nature of creativity.

“This auction is an important moment for the visual arts, where Ai-Da’s artwork brings focus on artworld and societal changes, as we grapple with the rising age of AI. The artwork ‘AI God’ raises questions about agency, as AI gains more power,” added Meller.