Botto: AI-Generated Art, Human Community, and the Journey Towards Artistic AGI

Boundaries of what’s possible.
Mario Klingemann, a German artist, has created something unique with Botto: a combination of AI, human community, DAO, and experimentation on the journey towards artistic AGI and self-awareness. 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. Klingemann explains, “Creation is really more like discovery in the possibility space.”
Klingemann has been at the forefront of machine learning and generative art for over fifteen years. He first got into AI art in the ’80s, when he read Marvin Minsky’s book “The Society of Mind.” He then created “Sketch Maker,” a tool that plugged modules randomly together to produce something and then transform it. He then thought, “How do I make the machine come up with something interesting?” He used statistics and metrics to analyze the output and train the machine to judge what was good and bad.
This is the core principle of Botto. It generates art on its own, then judges the quality of that art, and then, when it deems the art sufficiently good, brings it to market, automatically mints an NFT, and makes money. The human community gives Botto feedback on its proposals, and Botto adapts to that feedback. Botto has periods, or eras, that last 12 weeks, to match the quickening pace of AI development. Botto also has a “Botto coin” that allows people to join the DAO.
Klingemann says, “At the core of the creation algorithm, I identified exactly that problem. Which is why Botto prompts itself in a very, very random fashion. And that’s where these millions of fragments come into play. It’s more like a discovery process.” He adds, “If you look at Botto’s creation or what the community selects, you will actually see that so far Botto has not really developed a recognizable style, which I like.”