Billionaire tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, best known for co-founding the business networking platform LinkedIn, is releasing a series Solana-based NFTs based on images he creates using OpenAIs DALL-E 2 software for artificial intelligence.
Hoffman announced the initiative today on Twitter, noting that he would be auctioning off the first piece starting today Magical Edenthe largest Solana NFT marketplace.
The project, called Untranslatable Words, will span 11 pieces of tokenized images originally created via DALL-E 2, which generates art based on written questions.
“Anyone can ‘right-click-save’ a DALL-E original and make endless copies,” he wrote. “Enter: NFTs – a technology to make a digital resource provably scarce and unique. What happens when you combine two of the most important technological changes? How can they get along?”
The first piece in the collection, “mångata”, is at auction and has a current top bid of 12 SOL, or about $517. The Swedish term means “the road-like reflection of the moon on water,” according to the Magic Eden listing. Hoffman wrote that he was inspired by “words that exist in another language for which no single-word equivalent exists in your own language.”
He plans to split the funds generated by each piece between charities as well as his team of collaborators. Any NFT not purchased during the auctions will be burned or permanently destroyed.
An NFT is a blockchain token that can prove ownership of an item, such as artwork, collectibles, and video game items. The NFT market grew dramatically in 2021, generating some trade volume worth 25 billion dollarswith another 20 billion dollars logged so far this year.
DALL-E 2 images have been widely shared across the internet since the latest iteration of OpenAI’s platform was announced in April. The software creates various works of art based on text from the user, and can give surprisingly accurate results– even from combinations of unrelated terms.
While OpenAI is full of potential, acknowledge that the technology also requires thoughtful guidelines to reduce abuse and bias.
Until yesterday, commercialization of images generated by DALL-E 2 was prohibited by OpenAI, as the project was still in a “preview” release state. Documentation for the project even specifically citing sales of NFTs as not permitted by the terms.
However, OpenAI released a new beta version yesterday which enables commercialization rights for creators who generate images, ostensibly allowing Hoffman’s NFT project to exist. He is a board member of OpenAI, and has written a lot about DALL-E on his LinkedIn page.
“Visual expression cannot exist without technology,” Hoffman wrote on Wednesday. “Great artists have always been great innovators. If pioneering artists like Da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo were alive today, I’m sure they would be experimenting with DALL-E.”
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