Meet Botto, the AI-Artist That Mints Its Own NFTs

To a casual observer, creating AI-generated art is comically easy. You just use a tool like Midjourney and type in some text, such as “The Beatles playing tennis at the North Pole, in the style of Rembrandt.” Seconds later, voila, art. Or, if not quite “art,” at least something that looks like it took a bit of effort. More than 15 million users of Midjourney alone are cranking out these mediocre bits of AI art.

Then there’s the work of “Botto.” This is a different beast. Created by German artist Mario Klingemann, Botto isn’t just an AI tool. It’s part AI, part human community, part DAO, and part early experimentation on the journey towards artistic AGI, and even self-awareness.

Botto isn’t a static AI tool. It’s learning. It’s evolving. Every week, Botto cranks out artwork and the community votes on the best pieces. The winners get minted as NFTs and are then sold on OpenSea. Sometimes the art is dark and unsettling, like this mushy soup of human eyeballs (currently selling for 25ETH, or around $47,000). Sometimes the art is pleasing to the eye, like this silhouette of a woman staring at a mysteriously illuminated sky. And sometimes the art is listed at Christie’s, giving it the imprimatur of the mainstream art world.

The question “What counts as art?” has animated the art world for centuries. As AI infiltrates every nook of human creativity, that question looms ever larger. So is Botto creating “real” art?

“The short answer is, yes, I think what Botto is creating is very similar to how humans create,” says Klingemann, 53, who has been at the forefront of machine learning and generative art for over fifteen years, long before it was fashionable. (His exhibitions CV stretches back longer than many AI/Web3 artists have been alive.) “There’s a notion that when we create something, we kind of build it out of thin air, and then it’s an idea,” says Klingemann, who speaks quickly and with nervous excitement. “But for me, creation is really more like discovery in the possibility space.”

And perhaps the very creation of Botto — the ingenious system of a machine training itself to become a better artist — is itself the work of art. On a Zoom call from his native Munich, Klingemann shares his journey into AI and generative art, his vision for how…