Hong Kong —
At Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia’s biggest art fair, a mysterious AI agent silently observed passersby through two tracking cameras. Not even its creator knew quite what it was looking for.
Every two or three minutes, it picked someone out from the crowd and turned its perception of their facial emotions (were they bored, joyful, confused?) into a virtual character with which it would deliberate internally. Then, on a large screen, a surreal digital artwork morphed in real time to incorporate what had been discussed. The final 20 pieces — videos capturing each two-hour process, from start to finish — are being offered to art collectors for a minimum of $12,000 each.
“I’m…