Approximately 6,500 artists signed an open letter calling for Christie’s, a prominent fine art auction house, to cancel its inaugural exhibition featuring artworks created exclusively with artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, the exhibition, titled Augmented Intelligence, proceeded as planned and allegedly surpassed expectations.

Christie’s reported that the exhibition generated over $700,000 in sales, with numerous lots exceeding their estimated high values. The top-selling piece was Anadol’s “Machine Hallucinations — ISS Dreams — A,” a dynamic painting that utilizes algorithms to reimagine data from the International Space Station and satellites, selling for $277,200.

Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s Vice President and Director of Digital Art Sales, stated in an interview with Artnet that the exhibition’s success “confirmed” that collectors acknowledge and appreciate “creative voices that push the boundaries of art.”

However, many artists disagree with this perspective.

In the aforementioned open letter, the signatories accused Christie’s of showcasing artwork created using AI models that were “trained on copyrighted work” without obtaining the necessary licenses, thereby “exploiting” human artists by utilizing their work without permission to create competing products.