{
  "id": 2291654,
  "title": "Cuando no todo vale: por qué ha fracasado el arte hecho con IA",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/21/cuando-no-todo-vale-por-que-ha-fracasado-el-arte-hecho-con-ia",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-21T03:40:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "El Pais Economia",
    "slug": "el-pais-economia",
    "url": "https://cincodias.elpais.com/opinion/2026-08-21/cuando-no-todo-vale-por-que-ha-fracasado-el-arte-hecho-con-ia.html"
  },
  "original_language": "es",
  "account": "The value of artificial intelligence (AI) is only understandable when we are also honest about what it cannot create: art. We must recognize that the human link remains vital to validate (or dismiss) work developed by AI. If we understand this, we can quickly conclude that humanity is indispensable. Particularly if we are discussing a genius or an artist. While algorithms can now produce stunning compositions, nothing in their current state compares to the worth of a genuine masterpiece. The reason for this is straightforward from a practical standpoint: art value is derived from exclusivity. A Van Gogh is expensive because there are so few, and because the Dutch master, who never sold a single painting in his lifetime, has been dead for 136 years. He will never paint again. Scarcity drives up the price of owning one of his oils for display in your home. In his 37 years of life, Van Gogh painted around 850 oils and 1,600 drawings. That may seem like a lot for a human, but AI can do it in a single evening with minimal effort. Moreover, because these works have no copyright, anyone could reproduce them as wallpaper on their mobile phones, devaluing the product even further. There is no real business model in this scenario. Yet, people still paid exorbitant sums for such creations, up to €750,000 in Abu Dhabi in February of the previous year for a piece by Turkish artist Refik Anadol. Whether he will be remembered as a pioneer of postdigital architecture or the best businessman of the century remains to be seen. His work continues to generate interest, and after nearly a year of exhibition at the MoMA in New York, it can now be projected onto the facade of the Smithsonian Castle. However, fewer and fewer believe in the value of an art that, moreover, carries other risks such as technological dependence, software obsolescence, and the need for constant maintenance. The data is conclusive: the latest Art Basel 2026 report reveals that digital art accounts for only 1% of the total market volume. Many collectors no longer want to see it, even in painting. They are not, of course, willing to pay the astronomical sums that were paid just 12 months ago for these creations. This is not the first artistic proposal that rises like foam and disappears at the speed of light, but it is surprising because its closest predecessor, the NFT market, had already collapsed in 2023. Discussing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is like talking about a financial ruin. An NFT is a unique digital asset, certified through blockchain, which guarantees ownership and authenticity. Unlike cryptocurrencies, each NFT is irreplaceable. The idea sounded futuristic, and for a time, it was profitable. In 2021, artworks like Beeple's Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold at Christie's for $69 million. However, the market quickly collapsed. Extreme speculation, overabundance, and fraud fears caused transactions to drop from $12 billion in early 2022 to just $1 billion today. That said, it has generated a lot of entertainment on social media: laughing at the millionaires who have ruined themselves through this speculation. Many of them have then jumped into the game themselves, boasting on Twitter, now X, about the money they have lost. NFTs were not art; they were certificates proving the originality of the file. But in essence, they shared an illusion with digital artworks sold in 2025 that people still want: the false sense of exclusivity. Enter the logic of business that makes some technological projects fail spectacularly. That's the case of the metaverse, which nobody seems to remember. For investors accustomed to playing with risk, it may be a setback, but not necessarily a barrier. There are many projects in which they succeed. So many that, if played well, they can replace or compensate for the failures. But for the common man, it's important to separate the wheat from the chaff and not see bubbles where they don't exist. AI is the major driver of the economy, productivity, and the welfare society in 2026. The problem is that it does not work for everything. As has happened in art, it will fail where it attempts to replace the human element. And it will succeed where it has come to make us greater, to serve as inspiration, to boost the augmented human. If we want a painting to evoke feelings, it must be created by someone with feelings. And that, as of today, only comes from a human being.",
  "summary": "El valor de una obra artística depende en gran medida de que exista un número limitado de ellas",
  "key_points": [
    "AI cannot match the exclusivity and scarcity of human-created art",
    "Van Gogh's 850 oils and 1,600 drawings highlight the value of human creation",
    "AI's success lies in augmenting human creativity, not replacing it"
  ],
  "editors_take": "The failure of AI-generated art highlights that its value lies not in technical proficiency, but in the human element that algorithms lack, rendering it unable to replicate the worth of genuine masterpieces.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}