Christie’s AI Art Auction and Mistral’s OCR Tool Spark Debate: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

When the least teeth-on-edge AI story of the week is a sale at the world’s leading auction house, Christie’s, that consists solely of AI art, you know you might want to go and run your nails down a blackboard for some light relief (and who knows, you could sell it as performance art).

ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway

Do you remember the heady days of the NFT boom? (Do you even remember that the once-ubiquitous acronym stands for non-fungible token?) In November 2021, the digital artist Beeple put an NFT called The First 5000 Days up for auction. It raised $69.3 million. That was at Christie’s, too.

AI Art Sale Draws Protests and High Bids

The self-styled world’s first AI art sale ran until March 5. It made a total of $700,000. Christie’s reckons they are pretty pleased with that. Most of the artwork apparently went at the upper estimate end, topping out at $277,000 for Machine Hallucinations—ISS Dreams—A. At just one percent of the total of that single NFT, the market still clearly has a way to go.

Two side notes on that story. First, 6,500 artists wrote an open letter to Christie’s asking them to pull the show. And second, it comes hot on the heels of a fascinating story that AI-generated images apparently have a higher click-through rate for advertising. The research comes from Google and the publisher Bonnier.

Mistral OCR Raises Copyright Concerns

Finally, in this roundup, a new app that feels like a development in search of an open letter. Mistral, a French AI company, has launched Mistral OCR, which will enable users to convert any PDF into text. The rationale for doing so is that it will make it easier for developers to train large language models on new material. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I for one am absolutely convinced that no one would possibly imagine that could be used to expedite the use of pirated copyright material in training AI.

Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?

If you’re an ALLi member, head over to the SelfPubConnect forum for support from our experienced community of indie authors, advisors, and our own ALLi team. Simply create an account (if you haven’t already) to request to join the forum and get going.

Non-members looking for more information can search our extensive archive of blog posts and podcast episodes packed with tips and advice at ALLi's Self-Publishing Advice Center.