AI Art created the headline in 2018 after an artist who clearly auctioned off a painting titled Edmond de Belamy created it using Gan Models for a whopping $432,500. “The portrait, sold in the original golden wooden frame, depicts a man dressed in a dark frock coat with a plain white collar visible underneath,” Dezeen reported at the time. “The piece looks unfinished and unfinished, unfinished, with obscure, blurry facial features and a wide area of the canvas remaining blank.” This was the first AI-generated artwork to be sold at major auction houses, but more artwork was sold in the future.
In May 2022, Google launched Imagen technology as a new way to create AI art using images from text. Since then, various other programs have appeared, including Stability AI, Adobe Firefly, Midjourney, Prisma and more. And while AI art has long been a controversial topic among people in the art community, TechTarget points out that some of the ways artists can use AI are to enhance art therapy, democratization, education, and existing creation, create completely new works and get inspiration for new works.