While there are thorny, unresolved issues at the intersection of art and AI, there are also some interesting developments. A year ago we reported on the award of the Vesuvius Prize to a team of scholars who recovered more than 2000 characters from papyrus scrolls at Herculaneum carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 70 A.D. Using 3-D X-ray scans to digitally unwrap the scrolls and AI to “read” the scrolls, scholars have now accessed an entire scroll and are beginning to identify words and passages and even a likely author.

The Getty Museum has acquired its first photograph produced by AI, created by Costa Rican artist Matias Sauter Morera. The photo will be included in an upcoming exhibition entitled “The Queer Lens.” Sauter claimed that the use of AI enabled him to create the realistic photograph without intruding on real lives. Gallerist Craig Krull added “[we] learned to make photographs without film, now we are learning to make photographs without a camera.”

Finally, when Christie’s announced “Augmented Intelligence,” its first auction comprised entirely of art created by AI, thousands of artists and others wrote an open letter calling on the auction house to cancel the sale. The letter cited concerns that the AI models used to create the works were trained on copyrighted works without the consent of the copyright owners. Christie’s went ahead with the sale, which began on February 20.

There are numerous cases moving through the courts alleging similar copyright claims by visual artists as well as other creators. See, for example, Andersen v. Stability AI, No. 23-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal.), which is scheduled for trial in April 2027.