An unsettling portrait created by artificial intelligence (AI) is making a historic appearance on the auction block at Christie’s in New York City this week. It will be the first artwork created by an algorithm to be offered for auction in the world of fine art.

　　本周，一幅具有颠覆意义的肖像画历史性地出现在纽约佳士得拍卖行的拍卖台上,它是由人工智能创作的。这将是艺术界首次拍卖通过运算创作出的艺术品。

　　The portrait — designed in the "Old Master" style reminiscent of European fine artists from centuries ago — only partially fills the canvas, leaving empty space around the central figure. It appears to represent a man with a blurred face, dressed in clothing similar to that worn by subjects painted by the Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn in the 17th century.

　　这幅肖像画采用了数百年前的欧洲艺术 “绘画大师”的风格，它的颜料仅仅覆盖了部分画布，主体人像周围留出了大片空白。画作似乎描绘了一名五官模糊的男子，其身上的外衣类似于17世纪荷兰画家伦勃朗笔下人物的穿着。

　　Of course, a computer didn’t spontaneously pick up a brush and become an artist. The AI that generated the image had human programmers — a Parisian art collective called Obvious, Christie’s reported. Their collaboration, titled "Portrait of Edmond De Belamy," is part of a series of paintings of the fictional Belamy family and is expected to fetch $7,000 to $10,000, according to Christie’s.

　　当然，电脑本身并不会自发地拿起画笔，变身为艺术家。据佳士得介绍，创作这幅肖像画的人工智能依靠了人类程序员——一个名为“显而易见”的巴黎艺术团体。按照佳士得的说法，这幅画题为《埃德蒙·德贝拉米像》，是虚构的德贝拉米家族的一系列画作中的一件，有望拍出7000至10000美元。

　　To generate the portrait, the Obvious team first fed the neural network a diet of 15,000 images painted between the 14th and 20th centuries, to train it to recognize visual elements in fine art, Obvious artist Hugo Caselles-Dupré told Christie’s. The algorithm that eventually created an original image had two parts that worked against each other, called the Generator and the Discriminator; they dubbed this combative AI "generative adversarial network" (GAN), Caselles-Dupré explained.

　　要完成这样一件画作，“显而易见”团队首先将15000幅14至20世纪作品的图像输入一个神经网络，训练它辨认艺术品中的视觉元素，该团队的艺术家雨果·卡塞列斯-迪普雷告诉佳士得拍卖行。他介绍说，最终生成原创画作的算法由两个相互矛盾的部分组成，分别被称作“生成者”与“辨别者”。“显而易见”团队把这种斗争性人工智能称为“生成式对抗网络”。

　　"The Generator makes a new image based on the set, then the Discriminator tries to spot the difference between a human-made image and one created by the Generator. The aim is to fool the Discriminator into thinking that the new images are real-life portraits. Then, we have a result," he told Christie’s.

　　卡塞列斯-迪普雷说：“‘生成者’依据作品库生成新图像，然后‘辨别者”会努力分辨人类画作与‘生成者’画作的区别。目的是让‘辨别者’以为新图像就是真正的肖像画。这样，我们的成果就产生了。”

　　GAN’s final image was then inkjet-printed on canvas and framed, according to Obvious. At the bottom of the portrait is a mathematical formula representing the algorithm that created it, a nod to the relationship between the Generator and the Discriminator, Obvious artists wrote on the collective’s website.

　　“显而易见”团队介绍，“生成式对抗网络”创作出的成品会被喷墨打印机绘制在画布上，并装框成画。《埃德蒙·德贝拉米像》的画面底端有一行数学公式，代表了生成这幅画的算法，暗示了“生成者”与“辨别者”之间的关系，“显而易见”团队在其官方网站上介绍说。

　　"Portrait of Edmond De Belamy" is part of the Christie’s sale Prints and Multiples, which will be accepting bids from Oct. 23 to 25.

　　《埃德蒙·德贝拉米像》是佳士得此次拍卖的部分作品，拍卖时间为10月23日至25日。