Human art is dead. Welcome to the era of Robot Dreams.

Jan 17, 2023

Welcome. You might have noticed that the robots have taken over.

Code, glitch, and software-based art is complex, multi-dimensional, precise, and endlessly compelling.

Generative AI has mined the collective human intelligence, and is able to hallucinate incredible, dream-like, convincing visual artifacts.

Art markets have digitized using NFTs, and the Web3 platforms that support their exchange are exploring the frontier of creator economics.

The era of the painting and the photograph is over. The era of machine dreams is here.

We are all Art Cyborgs

These software tools are here to augment and improve the capacity of the individual, using the power of the collective. The foundations of this future world are open sourced, decentralized, and built from the ground up to the sky.

Only by understanding the evolution of technology and how it intersects with our creativity and markets, can we build the type of aesthetic experience that breaks through the noise.

This newsletter collects our journey on the path. It is for artists, collectors, curators, and financiers in the space. It is the weird combination of traits that’s required to succeed in the Web3 and AI-first metaverse. Welcome to your singularity, art cyborg.

This is just the beginning

We have been on the journey to understand the intersection of new media and financial markets for decades. The newsletter is authored by Lex Sokolin, whose relevant background you can see here:

Portfolio
Social media: Regular Twitter, Art Twitter, Tumblr
Elsewhere: The Fintech Blueprint

In prior writing, we’ve spent quite a bit of time pulling apart the industry dynamics of digital art markets, the evolution of technology, and the meaning of artificial intelligence for the average person. Here are a couple of those pieces.

Fintech Blueprint 🤖🏦🧭

What Finance can learn from the Evolution of Beautiful Artificial Intelligence Art; plus 14 short takes on top developments

Hi Fintech futurists -- In the long take this week, I take a journey from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, to the impact of Photography on Portraiture, to Artificial Intelligences building generative art on blockchain networks. We take stops along the way to see analogies to financial services, and to notice how expert craft turns to code…

6 years ago · 1 like · Lex Sokolin

Fintech Blueprint 🤖🏦🧭

Long Take: Luxury and Fashion market structure applied to finance, NFTs, and DAOs

Hi Fintech futurists -- This week, we cover the following: Thesis: Luxury and fashion markets are structurally different from finance or commodity markets in that they seek to limit supply in order to generate value. This increases price and social status. We can analogize these brand dynamics to what is happening in NFT digital object markets and better understand their function as a result…

4 years ago · 14 likes · Lex Sokolin

Fintech Blueprint 🤖🏦🧭

Long Take: Financial Mythmaking with $200MM of Loot NFTs and their growing world

Hi Fintech futurists -- This week, we cover the following: Thesis: We discuss the top-down and bottoms-up approaches to innovation and project building. For the former, we reference Australia’s draconian surveillance laws, and the integration of US driver’s licenses into Apple’s wallet. For the latter, we dive into the Ethereum-based Loot project and its incredible derivatives, $500MM token, and $200MM of volume. Last, we conclude by highlighting the role of creators on the coming wave of Fintech…

4 years ago · 14 likes · Lex Sokolin

Fintech Blueprint 🤖🏦🧭

Long Take: Generative AI creates the surreal search engine of our dreams

Gm Fintech Architects — Today we are diving into the following topics: Summary: We catch up on the $150MM and $100MM fundraises from Jasper AI, a generative content assistant, and Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion. The analysis puts into perspective how long it takes to train a single human agent, with an average of 13 years of education and 20 years to just enter the workforce, relative to the progress machines are making at mimicking human labor. We also look at the state of the markets in AI funding, valuation, and examples of trading multiples. Last, we attempt to extend our hypothesis about what the purpose of generative AI really is. Beyond “shallow labor” in DAOs, we come up on the idea of a search graph of our surreal desires…

3 years ago · 13 likes · Lex Sokolin

If you are wondering what kind of content we will have here, the answer is more of that kind like above, but with more creative work and attention to aesthetics. Our schedule here will be a lot more relaxed, and for now will remain open to all subscribers for free.

This is our latest climb on this adventure.

Join us!

The Generative Aesthete 🤖🎨📈

Human art is dead. Welcome to the era of Robot Dreams.

We are all Art Cyborgs

This is just the beginning