Name: Brainstorm Design 2024: Androids and Their Connection to Electric Art
Uploaded: 2024-12-05
Duration: 19 min 28 s
Description: Mario Klingemann, Artist, Botto, In conversation with Tony Chambers, Studio TC & Friends

Mario Klingemann, Artist, Botto, In conversation with Tony Chambers, Studio TC & Friends

Brainstorm Design 2024: Androids and Their Connection to Electric Art

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I think this one is gonna be fas fascinating 20 minutes with Mario where we are going to discuss Boto, the Decentralized Autonomous artist and the man who created Botto originally Mario. Before we get into the details on Botto, could you give us some insight and context to where you started? I believe you're a graphic designer working for nightclubs in Germany. Well, it's always difficult to kind of map my career because I always followed kind of what I was interested in most at a certain time and it was usually something that couldn't be taught. So yes, I was always fascinated by doing things with computers and code. And in the early nineties, there was a great opportunity because techno became really big in Germany where I'm from and they needed always kind of weird crazy graphics. So I became a graphic designer by writing Photoshop filters myself using algorithms. And this is when early, not really 1991 90 92 round. And uh so I would call it early generative art because in the end, yeah, you write an algorithm but then you add some sliders to it and get infinite variations and that's kind of my technique of, of doing my work and being kind of like the computer guy like that, which is also like, not really the label I want to have. But uh well as we all know, kind of the world evolved, the internet came along. So that's when those the same people said like, oh, there's a thing called website. So do you know what this is? So I made websites, then I made the video kind of like for German TV, on a computer, not on some million dollar machine. So it was always this end. But I always try to bring I'm lazy in that sense. So I love to spend like two days on an algorithm that then can do something for me a million times on the press of a space bar. So and yeah, so ultimately kind of that brought up the questions, what other things of myself can I replace with a machine? And of course, you said to me earlier that you always wished for an A I to do the things you didn't want to do even in those early days. So yeah, even like I think in 1989 I read this book by Marvin Minsky uh Society of Mind. I think it's called, which already promised all these amazing things like how a machine could make its own decisions and but it was all just graphics and it was really theoretical. So it took until me until like 2015 when deep learning kind of arrived on the scene and had all these amazing uh kind of results like, oh finally, you could detect the dog with 90% probability in an image. But I already knew this is just kind of you always have to kind of see the potential that's coming. And the moment I saw that this is going to be the next thing I jumped on for me, deep dream. Maybe you remember these psychedelic weird images. Uh That was the first time when you could reverse the process from just saying, classifying things to turning something like some numbers into an image. And yeah, so that was also the moment when it became clear that well, it could go beyond that. And uh yeah, I see really like, you know, grandfather's X, this thing where you start with an X and then you replace the handle, replace the Natalie Sharp in the end, like I tried to do that with myself saying, OK, which other parts and of course, that the thing like creativity itself and especially deciding whether something is interesting is good. Can that be replaced with a machine? And then when would you? So boto was born? Well, I mean, the idea for boto he conceive. So it came into the world in 2021. But I think the first time I wrote up the concept was 2018. And but as with any ideas that are maybe too early. I didn't find kind of, I have patterns. So, and sometimes I can go to them and say, oh, look like I have another idea. But in that case, they went for the memories of passers by first, which as we heard was made, eventually was sold at Sotheby's, which was nice. So, but yeah, that thing was in the drawer for another two years. Uh, it helps that then around, like with the pandemic, the Blockchain, the whole crypto world started exploding and suddenly people started seeing, oh yeah, there is actually something to it and then yeah, it took a year to build it. And yeah, in 2021 it bottle came into the world. Great. So now you're going to over the next few minutes give a a clear explanation of how Botto works for the layman and what you mean exactly by decentralized autonomous artist. So first, what does that mean? And how does botto work? Well, let me put this first. So really what I want to create with bottle or is like my answer to the question, can a machine be an artist? And especially now where everybody is becoming an artist by just entering some text. So that's the question like what is it? Is it just being able to produce pretty pictures that makes an artist? No, you have to create a compelling biography. And so that's how Botto is built up. So yes, underneath bottle is really a machine that produces images and tries to sell them. And by selling them, it makes money that keeps it alive. But there are some aspects to it. And I'd like to call the system more like the bottle Trinity. And I also like to call it like an inverse cyborg because this is how boto Trinity we're seeing on the screen. Yes. So explain simple terms how the Trinity works. The inverse cyborg idea is like unless like you do not have a human augmented by a machine, but you have a machine augmented by humans. And this works by these three parts. One is of course, the A I, well, whatever that is like the all the algorithms, the models that produce images and text. But then there is a human community in form of a so called DAO which is a Decentralized autonomous organization. It's kind of a, well, you could say it's company in the Blockchain, but it's a little bit different. But yeah, so community, it's a community that everybody can join and when you join it, you can make decisions and how do you, how do you become a, well, that's where the bottle token comes in or the economy comes in. So you have like just like, you know, Ethereum Bitcoin, there is a coin called bottle, which I call the lifeblood or the pulse and you can actually track the success of bottle in its chart. So you have to acquire bottle and then you stake it in a smart contract. It's kind of like you deposit it there and once it's deposited, you are part of the dow and you are allowed to vote on the books. They bought a small investment or a small, you can, well, you can join for free but you can uh the more you have stake in something, the more you can also profit from it. Because that is the kind of maybe the interesting part about botto. It is not so half of the proceeds. It may come to that later. With the process. We have a lovely graphic. So the process of how botto works, you have the dow which is influence it. So that's the community that teaches it. Is it art teacher boto go to art school. But the big question is like, why should the machine do any kind of art or what art should it make? So you could of course randomize it totally. But let's say realistically a fresh A I does not have any motivation to go in any direction. And that's where the humans come in that guide it. So bottle produces really constantly knew what we call fragments. It's like proto art. It's really, it prompts itself randomly by creating originally based on, on your taste. No. Oh, that's very important. No, no, no, no. Oh Actually, I have to take a step back here. I didn't want to influence the machine at all with my, so what it does is really like a shotgun approach to possibilities. So because that's what I believe is the best way to cover all possible directions. If it would only be my aesthetics, then, well, it would be a clone of myself and that was not the plan. It would be scary. Yeah. So bottle like uh roams through late in space and tries to get in any direction and builds up a huge pile of potential artworks right now. I think we are at five or 6 million that no human has ever seen. But once a week it selects 350 fragments. So thousands and thousands of fragments we boil once a week, it selects itself. So model using the taste model, it's like 350. Yeah. So it's like a curator in its own affairs, but that's when the voting comes in. So the humans uh get to see kind of like the proposals and can put votes on it. And in the end of the of every round, which takes a week, the one that got the most votes gets eventually minted on the Blockchain and set up for auction. That is when then there's the potential that it sells this and money comes back. But at the same time, those votes go back and trade in the taste model. So I'm the winner then learn that OK, this is popular. Actually, all the votes are all the vote. It's not only important what people like, it's also very important what they don't like. It's actually for me even more important because uh there are so many things directions you could go and we really create this kind of gravity of uh where it should show more and where it should show less. And unlike a human artist, it is kind of trying to please, right. A human artist should be kind of against the grain and really try to provoke some of the most successful try to please. Yeah, I mean, financially it's usually better to kind of go with what everybody likes. And if you, as you can see in bottles, art, it does a lot of things that are well agreeable. Well, let's look at some of the art. We have some slides, validating bottos success story over the last few years. Emerging press, we love. These are very early days. This is kind of from 2021 where there was not even these diffusion models like mid journey and all these available. So it was using a different technique. You can see a very clear kind of A I aesthetic, but I really thought out history aesthetic. Here. This is, yes, yes, yes. We have Edward Hopper. So here we can already see a little bit of a development when because what bottle works in is periods. So every period allows to add new models to it. And every period also has a theme which there's always 12 being proposed by bottle by the machine botto again, is deciding it and then the dow again, votes on what should we do next. And every theme comes with like a slogan and it becomes even like a prompt. And so it's like a several nested feedback loops here which and you can see some development that you can see how, let's say their quality, their style. So now it became more post photographic, I would say, and it's quite interesting to watch because not only the machine is learning here. What is for me is interesting, the human doll, which is kind of really people with art background, people without a lot of people who come from crypto, of course, and they all kind of pull in different directions and eventually, well, you get this essence and right now it seems they, they liked a lot, the photographic work. So you're seeing tastes change from both the human interpretation of votes, but also, but now 350 images such as this are produced a week for the Dow and the general public to vote, which is, which is interesting. So you don't have to be a member of the Dow. You don't have to have invested to actually vote on this. And um what we've got here, we hope it works is this week's or the last couple of days. Actually, the new round started the day before yesterday. I always mix up the time zones. But yeah, so every Tuesday uh is kind of where the next fragment is decided and immediately the new round star portfolio of work is there for the doubt to vote but also for the general public. And should I let's take a demonstration of where we are? So what you see is kind of like, I think you might have been given like information how to access it. So this is the the voting. It is really, you just scroll down. It's really like you're going through uh kind of like Instagram. And then right now I have 100 voting points which is kind of uh not a lot. So if you're a layman, if you just, but it's really to feel it out and then I can just say, OK, this is like for me, this is kind of boring. So it, it has typical A I cliches. So I give minus seven. This is also terrible. So really? So I don't know. So what you can see is that boto does not really have a single style and uh like usually kind of you would like to have an artist to have a very discernible visual style. What boto does have is a kind of, it has recurring themes and I find it quite fascinating to watch uh too, too typical. No, I hate it. So I'm, I'm more of the critical 10, do we get something loaded up? There we go. Oh No, no. Yeah. But I mean, there are these things like themes coming up, there's often like robots and machine hybrids. OK. Something typically abstract that might work nice on a kind of doctor's waiting room, I guess. Oops, I zoomed in and uh oh, actually I like this one personally need to get more of an idea of your title. And so yo you should note that, of course, botha creates all the descriptions for the for the works itself. Um And yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it analyzes them and uh like depending on what it sees, it, it never repeats any titles. So uh today the selection is, oh, actually, I like this. This is kind of post photographic glacial frame, kind of nice. So after the selection process, um many, many thousands of people voting, you have one winner. Yes. For the there's always a single winner. And yeah, that gets minted, gets put up for auction and if it sells and fortunately for the last 2.5 years, every single one sold typically, like, I mean, I don't know if you followed along the whole crypto kind of ups and downs. That was really kind of the winter and well, but still it went for about like 10,000 $15,000 every week. So in what happens then if it sells half of the proceeds are distributed among everybody who voted in that round, depending on how many voting points you spend. So, it's a little bit so the more stake you have in the game, the more you can win. But even if you don't purchase the artwork yourself, no, no, you don't have to get a share of the proceedings. Yeah. And it's quite interesting because, I mean, most of the people who are voting cannot afford bottos art, but you can shape kind of where boto is going to. So it is in your interest that itself. Well, and that's also the other question like, do you vote by your personal taste or do you vote because you think this will sell. So you have constantly this inner conflict dilemma, this dilemma like pity and commerce. Yes. Yeah. And, and that's what makes it interesting there. So, so an interesting economic model, 50% to the community who have voted and if 50% goes to Bo Treasury to keep the service running. Um Well, I mean, there is of course, and that's the other thing Boto does not try to kind of do kind of puppet play. So it's clear there are certain things that an A I at this point of time cannot like for example, take a call from Sotheby's saying like, oh, we want to auction it. There has to be still a human uh picking up the phone or answering the email. So there is a human team that gets paid and uh kind of, oh, I get a little bit payment even. But because Yeah, I have to take care for bringing in new models. But the nice thing is the more technology progresses, the less humans will have to do. So, we are now at the very future. That's what I'm intrigued about this. It's still very early days. So he, he's an infant, he's still in nursery, um the future. So how do you see it? It's becoming totally autonomous and able to vote for his own work. Yes. So one of the things is that both should be able to, to have more of a word itself. But what for me is the most interesting aspect is we have a potential to create a truly immortal artist here and not sure if that's a good thing, right? If you look at the art market, usually at least for the for the heirs, it's more beneficial. If the artist at some point leaves and stops making more work, it's always a good move young. Yes, that so bottle has the should never die. But yeah, what does it mean? So what I find interesting is that aspect of altruism in A I because as we can see the A I doesn't need all that money it makes. So why not share it with the world and do some good. And so for now, it might be just the people who are believing in boto and helping. But ultimately, the could also decide, OK, Boto should uh create a foundation like I don't know, if it becomes a billionaire, I hope it's uh able to also then think about other things than how it could change the world it would come. Yes. Move from being an artist to a politician. A I these are fascinating considerations. I hope that made sense. It did to me the second time around. I think it's a fascinating area, machines and humans and how taste is controlled or how taste is steered is fascinating and the future of this we will watch very carefully. So, thank you very much, Mario. Thank you. Thank you, Botto. Round of applause for Mario and botto. Thank you.