A robot artist is set to make history as the first to have a work put up for sale by a major auction house, with the portrait of Alan Turing expected to fetch up to £150,000 (€180,000, $196,000), organizers announced on Wednesday.

The piece created by  Ai-Da, a humanoid robot artist powered by artificial intelligence, will be the first sold at a major auction house and is set to go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London next month. It has been described as a "haunting" portrait of the English mathematician Alan Turing, considered one of the fathers of modern-day computing.

The large-scale artwork is entitled "AI God" and was " first exhibited at the United Nations in May 2024 as part of a five paneled Polyptych," Sotheby's said on its homepage.

Robot with human-like features

The ultra-realistic robot is designed to resemble a human female with a face, large eyes and a brown wig.

The robot works by deploying AI algorithms and has cameras in its eyes, as well as bionic hands.

Gallery owner and founder of Ai-Da Robot studio, Aidan Meller, headed the team that created the robot with AI specialists at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham.

Symbolic artwork

Meller said Turing, who made his name as a World War II codebreaker, had raised fears over the power of AI as early as the 1950s.

He said the work's "muted tones and broken facial planes" seemingly suggested "the struggles Turing warned we will face when it comes to managing AI." Ai-Da's works were "ethereal and haunting" and "continue to question where the power of AI will take us, and the global race to harness its power."

Ai-Da also made headlines in 2022 when depicting the headline acts of the Glastonbury music festival in the UK. 

Sotheby's Digital Art Sale will run from October 31 through November 7.

jsi/msh (AFP, dpa)