Botto: A Decentralized Autonomous Artist and Its Work "Cluster #069"

What is it about?

Botto project is an experiment in creating a decentralized autonomous artist that generates art based on community feedback. Every week, Botto creates and sells artwork via a series of models and crowdsourced evaluations of over 9,000 people who also decide how to manage the artist and its sales. We present a formal description of how Botto works and an analysis of artwork Cluster:#069.

Featured Image

Photo by British Library on Unsplash

Photo by British Library on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Over the centuries, the idea of autonomous entities with creative or co-creative abilities has captivated the human imagination. From early literary examples [Kantosalo et al., 2021] to today's text-to-image models like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, which can generate realistic imagery in seconds, the notion of machines as artistic agents has gained prominence. Botto is the product of such dreams of creating an autonomous art agent, an ambitious experiment in autonomous art creation without direct human intervention. By embracing decentralized technologies and autonomous decision-making, Botto pushes the boundaries of artistic expression. It challenges traditional beliefs about authorship, curation, and artistic processes, forging new paths in the art world. The project leverages NFTs, DAOs, and DeFi to facilitate the sale of artworks and compensate contributors who offer feedback on Botto's images, thereby shaping its aesthetic development. However, this labor is carefully managed to preserve Botto's agency and prevent it from being a mere tool under the control of a single human artist. For instance, no human is permitted to modify Botto’s images or prompts. As a pioneering community, economy, and creative force, the Botto project grapples with complex issues surrounding anthropomorphized AI, machine creativity, governance, ownership, and credit.