Unleashing Creativity: Meet Botto, the AI Artist Cashing in Millions

The art world has been taking notice of a new creative force that goes by the name Botto. Taking a departure from conventional artists, Botto credits its origin to digital technology, more specifically to the use of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). A millionaire artist whose creations fetched over $4 million in sales, Botto stunned audiences with its exhibit at Sotheby's in New York in October of this year.

Who, or rather what exactly, is Botto? Conceived in 2021, Botto is partially an autonomous artistic entity developed by a trio that includes the German artist Mario Klingemann, Simon Hudson, a media entrepreneur, and Computer Scientist cum Designer, Ziv Epstein. It is essentially a decentralized entity armed with an AI image generator that bears similarities to programs like Dall-E or Midjourney.

Botto’s Artistic Process: A Combination of AI and Community Preferences

One unique aspect of Botto's creative process is its use of a "taste model". This model aids in selecting the best images generated by an impulse, rooting its choices in the preferences of a community of Botto enthusiasts. These followers get to vote on the images that Botto concocts and then exhibits online. This system is further regulated by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). By purchasing $Botto cryptocurrency, enthusiasts get a say on the system’s management and its future development.

Botto's recent Sotheby's show isn't its first successful venture. It’s been on an upward trajectory, with the October exhibition alone yielding a whopping $350,000 in sales. According to its creators, Botto has amassed around $4 million in total since its inception in 2021.

Botto's Evolution: Beyond Artwork Generation

The creators, Klingemann and Hudson, revealed that the individuals steering Botto through the associated DAO have opted to integrate a modified version of Mistral's largest open-source language model. This, coupled with a knowledge base permitting it to converse about its artwork, will be refined via interactions with the Botto community. Klingemann suggests, "Through this interaction and through various channels of input, its knowledge will grow and it will develop a personality and interests.”

The duo hope that this personality will even begin to shape the art Botto produces. They are entertaining the idea of allowing Botto to use an unrestricted image generator – without the security measures that could stop it from crafting provocative or intense images. This could test whether Botto can cultivate its own understanding of artistic appropriateness. Comparing Botto's maturation to a human's, Hudson explains, "Right now we give Botto safe models, but as it gets older you [could] give it things that require greater maturity."

Botto: A New Dimension of Art or Just Another AI Cash-Grab?

The discussion about AIs like Botto often lead to ethical conundrums. Many artists express concerns over the impact AI's limitless replicative abilities could have on their profession, as these neural network technologies can be used to churn out infinite duplicates of copyrighted works.

Botto's creators argue however, that the AI should not be viewed as a copyright pariah. Klingemann, who has been integrating AI with his art for a while, argues, “Image models and LLMs are the new search engines. For me, creativity is kind of finding something that already exists in possibility-space, and deciding this is interesting, while making sure it looks [like it] doesn't belong to anybody already.”

Although Botto's creations may seem aesthetically pleasing, they might be seen as typical of AI graphics generators. While Botto does add an interesting layer to the discussion of artistic agency, one might argue that the creativity of the original human artists remains paramount. After all, they created the concept.