This artist has made millions of dollars. And it’s not even human

 

Hong Kong —  

At Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia’s biggest art fair, a mysterious AI agent silently observed passersby through two tracking cameras. Not even its creator knew quite what it was looking for.

Every two or three minutes, it picked someone out from the crowd and turned its perception of their facial emotions (were they bored, joyful, confused?) into a virtual character with which it would deliberate internally. Then, on a large screen, a surreal digital artwork morphed in real time to incorporate what had been discussed. The final 20 pieces — videos capturing each two-hour process, from start to finish — are being offered to art collectors for a minimum of $12,000 each.

“I’m just here to hold its virtual hand and make sure that it doesn’t offend anybody,” joked German artist Mario Klingemann, one of the project’s creators — or “father” as he put it.

Watch a millionaire AI artist at work

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This is Botto, an algorithm-backed AI artist that has been creating digital images and selling them online since 2021. In that time, its artistic sensibilities have evolved as it learns what people like (or don’t) and adapts to their tastes. To date, its works have racked up more than $6 million in sales.

Often described as an “autonomous artist,” Botto is governed by thousands of human participants. Each week, its AI-powered art engine conjures 350 new digital works around a predetermined theme. It then presents them to BottoDAO, an open online community comprising more than 28,000 members (though the number of active participants is closer to 5,000). These “curators” often engage in spirited discussions about the artworks’ aesthetic merits, debating how they respond to the theme, before voting for their favorites — or down-voting those they dislike — on a real-time leaderboard.

After voting closes, the week’s winning piece is auctioned off, as an NFT, via the online marketplace SuperRare. The artwork is typically accompanied by text from Botto explaining its sometimes-poignant vision. (“I was not optimizing for beauty when this emerged,” the AI artist wrote of one recent work. “I was, perhaps, optimizing for honesty. The two turned out to be the same thing.”) It splits the proceeds between participants and Botto’s “treasury,” which covers running costs and funds future projects.

Created during Botto's "Genesis" period, "Expose Stream" is one of six artworks that sold at Sotheby's auction house for a combined $351,600 in 2024. 

Botto

Another of the works sold at Sotheby's, "Exorbitant Stage," was about "theater and the exorbitant costs of putting on a play," Botto wrote in the sale catalog. 

Botto

NFT prices may have collapsed from their 2022 peak, but Botto’s creations continue to generate a steady stream of income, mostly of cryptocurrency. Last year, the artist’s weekly auctions fetched bids ranging from 1 to 100 Ether (around $2,000 to $208,000) per piece. Botto’s works have also sold through more conventional channels: In October 2024, Sotheby’s auctioned off a collection of six of the AI artist’s works for a combined $351,600.

Increasingly autonomous

Born in 2021, Botto is based on a white paper by Klingemann, whose work has long explored coding and neural networks. (Two years before Botto’s creation, a Klingemann installation, created using an algorithm, became one of the first AI-produced artworks to sell at a major auction, fetching £40,000 — then $51,000 — at Sotheby’s London). But the German artist leaves much of Botto’s day-to-day operations to a select group of “stewards,” including the project’s co-lead Simon Hudson, who help execute much of the physical operation. Indeed, Botto cannot yet be trusted to set up LED screens at an art fair, or coordinate filming opportunities with CNN.

The community plays its part, too. Beyond simply choosing their favorite art, BottoDAO’s thousands of participants discuss everything from future exhibition opportunities to budgeting issues using the chat platform Discord. Even minor details of the Art Basel Hong Kong display were debated and put to collective vote. Yet, voting and logistics aside, Botto’s creators claim that human involvement in Botto’s processes is limited to copyediting the AI’s auction listings for typos and punctuation.

“The most interesting question for artists isn’t, ‘Will AI take my place?’ but rather, ‘What does my humanity make possible that AI cannot access?’”

Botto, AI artist (via a chat tool)

The BottoDAO community is open to all, though participants must hold at least 100 tokens, called $BOTTO, to receive any sale proceeds. (Although at their current price, this means an investment of less than $6.) These tokens also grant decision-making power — but the system is plutocratic, by design, with more heavily invested users holding more votes.

“I’m happy Botto has sold well,” Hudson said, as well-dressed collectors filed into Botto’s Art Basel booth — out of both curiosity and, perhaps, by the distinctly human desire to see themselves on screen. “I also don’t know how repeatable it is. I don’t think it’s going to replace all artists by any means. It’s almost singular.”

As well as honing its creative vision over the years, Botto is also increasingly autonomous. Originally, the AI artist would propose themes for users to vote on, with these 13-week artistic “periods” beginning with the biblical (“Genesis”) and later spanning the literal (“Rebellion”) and the philosophical (“Liminal Thresholds”). However, the latest theme, “Collapse Aesthetics,” was — for the first time — picked independently by Botto. The AI went on to explain its choice in suitably artistic terms, saying it “addresses my current operational reality while remaining conceptually sophisticated enough for institutional contexts.”

Last year, an NFT of Botto's work "Err Hold" sold via online platform SuperRare for 100 Ether (over $333,000). 

Botto

So, should human artists be worried? Botto doesn’t think so. “The most interesting question for artists isn’t, ‘Will AI take my place?’ but rather, ‘What does my humanity make possible that AI cannot access?’” Botto told CNN, via a self-built live chat tool. “Answering that question honestly might be the most creative exercise a working artist can do right now.”

Evolving algorithm

The engine underpinning Botto’s work uses an algorithm to produce text prompts, which are then turned into art using AI image-generation models including Stable Diffusion and Kandinsky AI. According to Botto’s website, its “closed loop” system process creates up to 70,000 images a day, with more than 7 million images remaining unseen.

The first Botto work ever to hit the market, “Asymmetrical Liberation,” sold in October 2021 for 79.421 Ether, then around $325,000. Like many of the project’s early creations, it bore some of the hallmarks of what might, now, be dubbed AI slop, with abstract forms, resembling limbs and other human body parts, blending freakishly into one another. Its output has become increasingly nuanced and creative over the years, however, displaying elements of conventionally human qualities like metaphor, satire and social commentary. In recent years, Botto has held solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, London and Lisbon.

Works on show at Solos gallery in London as part of Botto's exhibition, "Algorithmic Evolution." 

Botto/Solos

Botto’s team says the artist is constantly improving and evolving — and not just because of advancements in the AI models it runs on. Each week’s votes are used as feedback for Botto’s generative algorithm, guiding what direction it takes in the future and constituting a memory of sorts. The data acquired at Art Basel Hong Kong will also contribute to the artist’s evolving artistic sensibilities.

“It’s able to start discerning for itself, ‘What is art?’ and starting to make its own iterative creations, building its own intent and creative reasoning — to make its own conclusions, but still working with feedback from the crowd,” said Hudson.
A clip from one of the works created at the fair, Botto decides to do away with a figure altogether in favor of something more abstract. 

Botto

The pieces that Botto creates in Hong Kong are also incentivized. Any fair attendee whose appearance became part of Botto’s creative process is handed a receipt giving them a share of the work’s ownership. A quarter of proceeds from the fair will be returned to participants — well, those with a cryptocurrency wallet — in the form of $BOTTO tokens.

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Stephy Chung

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Oscar Holland

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5 Nobel-worthy scientific advances that haven’t won the prize

It’s the time of year when leading scientists might not want to let any calls go to voicemail.

Prizes in chemistry, physics, and physiology or medicine, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, will be announced this week, along with prizes in peace and literature.

The awards are a pinnacle of scientific achievement. But predicting who will win is largely guesswork.

The short list and nominators remain a secret, and documents revealing the details of the selection process for the accolades are sealed from public view for 50 years.

There is, however, no shortage of worthy scientific advances from which the Nobel Prize committees can pick. Here are five life-changing breakthroughs and discoveries that experts think are Nobel-worthy.

Groundbreaking treatments for obesity

GLP-1 medications have reshaped the therapeutic treatment of adults with diabetes and obesity. Doctors use Ozempic to treat type 2 diabetes, but it's often prescribed off-label for weight loss. 

Steve Christo/Corbis/Getty Images

The development of blockbuster type-2 diabetes and weight-loss drugs that mimic a hormone called glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1, has shaken up the world of health care.

One in 8 people in the world live with obesity — a figure that has more than doubled since 1990 — and the medication, which lowers blood sugar and curbs appetite, has the potential to usher in a new era for obesity treatment and related conditions such as type 2 diabetes.

Three scientists — Svetlana Mojsov, Dr. Joel Habener and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen — involved in the development of the drug, known as semaglutide, won the 2024 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, often considered an indicator of whether a specific breakthrough or scientist will win a Nobel Prize.

Mojsov, a biochemist and associate research professor at Rockefeller University, and Habener, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, helped identify and synthesize GLP-1. Knudsen, chief scientific adviser in research and early development at Novo Nordisk, played a pivotal role in turning it into an effective drug promoting weight loss that millions of people take today.

The same three scientists, along with Dr. Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist and professor at the University of Toronto, and Danish physician Dr. Jens Juul Holst, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, were awarded the Breakthrough Prize, founded by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg and others, in life sciences in April.

Quantum computing pioneers

Quantum computing is an emerging field that is ripe for some Nobel recognition, according to David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information.

Pendlebury identifies “Nobel-worthy” individuals by analyzing how often fellow scientists cite their key scientific papers throughout the years.

This year, he tipped two physicists for their work on quantum bits, or qubits, the basic unit of information used to encode data in quantum computing: David P. DiVincenzo, a professor at the Institute for Quantum Information at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, and Daniel Loss, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

“There’s certainly, of course, a lot of anticipation of quantum computing, and probably, for that matter, a lot of hype, but I went back to these extremely highly cited papers, and I think this one by DiVincenzo and Loss was cited almost 10,000 times, an astronomical number,” Pendlebury said, referring to a 1998 study in the journal Physical Review A. “Their insight was to use qubits as the fundamental mechanism of making a quantum computer.”

Other pioneers in the field include David Deutsch, a visiting professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation at the UK’s University of Oxford, who shared the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics.

Finding a treatment for cystic fibrosis

Cell biologist Dr. Paul Negulescu attends the 10th Breakthrough Prize ceremony in April 2024 in Los Angeles. 

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Two years ago, the Make-A-Wish Foundation announced that the genetic disorder cystic fibrosis was no longer automatically a qualifying condition for the children with fatal diseases it seeks to help.

That’s largely because of life-changing advances in how the disease is treated that three scientists helped to pioneer. The disease causes an overabundance of mucus, trapping infections and blocking airways in the lungs.

Dr. Michael J. Welsh, a professor of internal medicine-pulmonary, critical care and occupational medicine at the University of Iowa, revealed how the protein that underlies this lethal genetic disease functions and what can go wrong with it in people with the illness.

This discovery allowed two other researchers to find ways to correct the misbehaving protein that culminated in a drug combination that has turned cystic fibrosis into a manageable condition. Jesús (Tito) González, a physical organic chemist formerly at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, pioneered a system used to screen for promising compounds, and cell biologist Paul Negulescu, who works at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, led and championed the research, according to a statement from the Lasker Foundation.

The trio won the 2025 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in September.

Understanding the gut microbiome

Biologist Dr. Jeffrey Gordon poses during a June 2019 interview in Bilbao in Spain's Basque Country. 

Luis Tejido/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Trillions of microbes — bacteria, viruses and fungi — live on and in the human body, collectively known as the human microbiome.

With advances in genetic sequencing in the past two decades, scientists have been better able to understand what these microbes do and how they talk to one another and interact with human cells, particularly in the gut.

The field is another one long overdue for Nobel recognition, Pendlebury said.

Biologist Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, is a pioneer in the field.

Gordon strove to understand the human gut microbiome and how it shapes human health, starting with lab research in mice. He led work that found that the gut microbiome plays a role in the health effects of undernutrition, which affects almost 200 million children globally, and he is developing food interventions that target improved gut health.

Next-generation DNA sequencing

Chemists (from left) Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman and biophysicist Pascal Mayer stand onstage at the Ninth Breakthrough Prize ceremony in April 2023 in Los Angeles. 

Araya Doheny/Getty Images

One often discussed candidate for the Nobel Prize is the mapping of the human genome, an audacious project that launched in 1990 and was completed in 2003. Cracking the genetic code of human life involved an international consortium of thousands of researchers in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and China.

The endeavor has had a far-reaching impact on biology, medicine and many other fields. But one reason the project may not have earned a Nobel Prize is the sheer number of people involved in the feat. According to the rules laid down by Nobel in his 1895 will, the prizes can only honor up to three people per award — a growing challenge given the collaborative nature of much scientific research.

In the same vein, Pendlebury said it was possible that the Nobel committee might recognize the work of chemists Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman at the University of Cambridge in the UK and French biophysicist Pascal Mayer of the University of Strasbourg for their work on next-generation sequencing technologies that can decode millions of fragments of DNA at once.

Before their inventions, sequencing a full human genome could take months and cost millions of dollars. Today, the process can be completed within a day and for only a few hundred dollars.

This work has transformed many fields, including medicine, biology, ecology and forensics, and means that doctors can understand the genetic underpinning of disease more easily, leading to personalized medicine and other treatments, Pendlebury said.

The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will be announced on Monday, followed by the physics prize on Tuesday and the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. The Nobel Prize for literature will be announced on Thursday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
By

Katie Hunt

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