Artificial Intelligence Creates Better Art Than You (Sometimes)

In 2018, in late October, a distinctly odd painting appeared at the fine art auction house Christe's. At a distance, the painting looks like a 19th-century portrait of an austere gentleman dressed in black. Contained in a gilt frame, the portly gentleman appears middle-aged; his white-collar insinuates that he is a man of the church. The painting seems unassuming, something expected at an auction house that sells billions of dollars of painting each year. However, upon closer inspection, things get a bit odd.