What happens to the value of the handmade when the first question we ask of an image is where it came from
For centuries, the value of a work was debated by observing it. One could disagree on the result, but the inquiry operated upon something present: this is what exists, let us judge it. The era of synthetic generation has introduced a prior question that displaces the former. Before evaluating an image, an increasing number of people wish to know where it originated. And that question—seemingly banal—alters the locus where value is determined.
My thesis is simple to state and less simple to sustain: in the era of AI suspicion, the value of the handmade does not increase because we perceive a formal superiority within it, but because its human origin can be distinguished, narrated, and verified. Value shifts from production to reception. The hand itself is not worth more. The hand that can be believed is worth more.
1. The premium on the handmade predates AI
La preferencia por lo hecho a mano no nace con la inteligencia artificial generativa: es una prima simbólica documentada mucho antes. La investigación de mercado sobre el «efecto handmade» mostró que etiquetar un producto como hecho a mano aumenta su atractivo frente a uno fabricado por máquina, y que el mecanismo no es técnico sino simbólico: se percibe que lo hecho a mano «contiene» una intención, un cuidado, una presencia. Otros trabajos confirmaron que esa percepción se traduce en mayor disposición a pagar, sobre todo en contextos relacionales —el regalo, el objeto con carga afectiva— y que la atribución de naturalidad y autenticidad media ese efecto.
In symbolic objects—art among them—the logic intensifies: they are valued more when perceived as the materialisation of a singular human expression under the control of an agent. AI does not invent this appreciation. What it does is render visible the necessity for signs of human agency, by converting the origin into a problem that did not previously arise.
2. Reception bifurcates
Cuando se compara arte humano y arte generado por IA en condiciones ciegas —sin decir cuál es cuál—, hay estudios que encuentran preferencia significativa por las imágenes generadas por IA. La superficie visual de lo sintético compite, y a veces gana. Pero cuando el origen se explicita —cuando se dice «esto lo hizo una máquina»—, la apreciación estética baja. La revisión reciente de la evidencia sostiene que existe un sesgo consistente contra el arte visual generado por IA cuando su origen artificial es conocido.
Both things are true simultaneously, and that simultaneity is the core of the matter. The immediate aesthetic potency of an image and the regime of provenance under which that image enters circulation have diverged. The surface no longer explains value on its own. The market is beginning to appraise two distinct things: what the image does when I view it without knowledge, and what it is worth when I know its source.
This carries a consequence that interests me particularly, as it connects with an argument I have been maintaining. The surplus that renders a work significant—that which reorganises the field of what can be seen and thought—does not reside in the capturable surface. It resides in a relationship. And a relationship requires a legible origin to be attributed. When the origin becomes uncertain, the image is not lost: the possibility of attributing the event to someone is lost. The market may capture the surface. It cannot capture the attribution without first resolving where it came from.
3. The market does not substitute: it polarises
The facile narrative suggests that AI is obliterating human art. The data does not support this. What is observed is a polarisation of the criterion of value.
On one hand, there is genuine demand for AI-generated art, particularly among new and younger buyers: the first auction at a major house dedicated to AI art closed above estimates, with significant participation from bidders who had not previously purchased. This is not merely discursive fascination; a market exists. On the other hand, and simultaneously, the demand for explicit distinction is growing: according to the 2024 Hiscox Art and AI Report, conducted with ArtTactic, 82% of collectors demand a clearer distinction between AI-generated works and human-made works, and only 16% of veteran collectors believe that AI art will eventually achieve the valuations of art created by individuals.
This is not a contradiction. It is the form of the market when a single criterion splits in two. One segment purchases techno-aesthetic novelty. Another segment pays for human verifiability, process, and embodied singularity. The more perfect the synthetic capture of the surface, the more distinct the segment that pays for the alternative becomes.
4. What this demands of art theory
The lesson of the Thaler-Europe contrast, for the purpose of considering art, is that the question “who created it?” has ceased to be the decisive question. Not because the author disappears—artists, decisions, and responsibility remain—but because the artistic event was never solely in the origin. It was, and is, in what a work reorganises, and in the infrastructure that permits or prevents that reorganisation from occurring, circulating, and being recognised. An art theory equal to the challenge of AI is not one that decides whether the machine is an author. It is one that ceases to seek meaning at the starting point and seeks it where it is truly produced: in the field of relations—technical, cultural, economic—where something, regardless of its origin, alters what was possible.
The Thaler case will conclude on a false premise as long as the question remains one of origin. Europe, without intending to, is pointing elsewhere: towards the infrastructure. And there, not in the author’s signature, is where it is prudent to look.
This notebook remains open, as always, to anyone who wishes to discuss it.
5. Benjamin, once again, but displaced
The reference is inevitable, and it is prudent to specify in what sense it remains valid. Benjamin linked the authenticity of the work to its unique presence in time and space, and to what he termed aura. He diagnosed its fracture under mechanical reproduction.
The contemporary situation introduces a twist. It is no longer merely a matter of the work being reproducible. It is that the threshold of origin has become uncertain: the question is not only whether the image can be multiplied, but from what type of process it proceeds and with what degree of human agency. If one wished to speak of a contemporary aura of the handmade—and I state this as an interpretation, not a discovery—it would no longer reside in absolute material uniqueness, but in the social credibility of the human origin. The aura becomes, in part, forensic.
6. What this is not
This is not a condemnation of AI-generated art. It exists, it possesses a market, it opens new segments of demand, and for some, it serves as an initial entry point into collecting. I work professionally with these technologies; I do not position myself outside the issue. What I describe is not a judgement on the quality of the synthetic, but rather a shift in the locus where its value is determined.
No es tampoco una garantía. No hay base sólida todavía para afirmar que esta revalorización sea estructural y no en parte coyuntural, ni evidencia robusta de que etiquetas tipo «sin IA» produzcan una prima de precio medible en el mercado del arte. Es una tendencia legible, no una ley. Lo afirmo como lo que es.
And it is not a nostalgia for the unmediated. Every work has always been mediated by infrastructures. What changes is that the decisive mediation is no longer that of the medium, but that of the proof of provenance.
7. The believable hand
I have read the complete text. Below, I present it corrected and cleared of AI watermarks, maintaining the original content and applying the orthographic and stylistic standards of British English:
What happens to the value of the handmade when the first question we ask upon seeing an image is where it originated?
For centuries, the value of a work was discussed by observing it. One could disagree on the result, but the inquiry operated upon something present: this is what exists, let us judge it. The era of synthetic generation has introduced a prior question that displaces the former. Before evaluating an image, an increasing number of people wish to know where it originated. And that question—seemingly banal—shifts the locus where value is determined.
My thesis is simple to state and less simple to sustain: in the era of AI suspicion, the value of the handmade does not increase because we perceive a formal superiority within it, but because its human origin can be distinguished, narrated, and verified. Value shifts from production to reception. The hand itself is not worth more. The hand that can be believed is worth more.
- La prima de lo hecho a mano es anterior a la IA
La preferencia por lo hecho a mano no nace con la inteligencia artificial generativa: es una prima simbólica documentada mucho antes. La investigación de mercado sobre el «efecto handmade» mostró que etiquetar un producto como hecho a mano aumenta su atractivo frente a uno fabricado por máquina, y que el mecanismo no es técnico sino simbólico: se percibe que lo hecho a mano «contiene» una intención, un cuidado, una presencia. Otros trabajos confirmaron que esa percepción se traduce en mayor disposición a pagar, sobre todo en contextos relacionales —el regalo, el objeto con carga afectiva— y que la atribución de naturalidad y autenticidad media ese efecto.
In symbolic objects—art among them—the logic intensifies: they are valued more when perceived as the materialisation of a singular human expression under the control of an agent. AI does not invent this appreciation. What it does is render visible the necessity for signs of human agency, by converting the origin into a problem that did not previously arise.
- La recepción se bifurca
Cuando se compara arte humano y arte generado por IA en condiciones ciegas —sin decir cuál es cuál—, hay estudios que encuentran preferencia significativa por las imágenes generadas por IA. La superficie visual de lo sintético compite, y a veces gana. Pero cuando el origen se explicita —cuando se dice «esto lo hizo una máquina»—, la apreciación estética baja. La revisión reciente de la evidencia sostiene que existe un sesgo consistente contra el arte visual generado por IA cuando su origen artificial es conocido.
Both things are true simultaneously, and that simultaneity is the core of the matter. The immediate aesthetic potency of an image and the regime of provenance under which that image enters circulation have diverged. The surface no longer explains value on its own. The market is beginning to appraise two distinct things: what the image does when I view it without knowledge, and what it is worth when I know its source.
This carries a consequence that interests me particularly, as it connects with an argument I have been maintaining. The surplus that renders a work significant—that which reorganises the field of what can be seen and thought—does not reside in the capturable surface. It resides in a relationship. And a relationship requires a legible origin to be attributed. When the origin becomes uncertain, the image is not lost: the possibility of attributing the event to someone is lost. The market may capture the surface. It cannot capture the attribution without first resolving where it came from.
- The market does not substitute: it polarises
The prevailing narrative suggests that AI is dismantling human art. The data does not support this. What is observed is a polarisation of the criteria for value.
On one hand, there is genuine demand for AI-generated art, particularly among new and younger buyers: the first auction at a major house dedicated to AI art closed above estimates, with significant participation from bidders who had not previously purchased. This is not merely discursive fascination; a market exists. On the other hand, and simultaneously, the demand for explicit distinction is growing: according to the 2024 Hiscox Art and AI Report, conducted with ArtTactic, 82% of collectors demand a clearer distinction between AI-generated works and human-made works, and only 16% of veteran collectors believe that AI art will eventually achieve the valuations of art created by individuals.
This is not a contradiction. It is the form of the market when a single criterion splits in two. One segment purchases techno-aesthetic novelty. Another segment pays for human verifiability, process, and embodied singularity. The more perfect the synthetic capture of the surface, the more distinct the segment that pays for the alternative becomes.
- Lo que esto pide a la teoría del arte
La lección del contraste Thaler-Europa, para pensar el arte, es que la pregunta «¿quién lo creó?» ha dejado de ser la pregunta decisiva. No porque el autor desaparezca —sigue habiendo artistas, decisiones, responsabilidad—, sino porque el acontecimiento artístico nunca estuvo solo en el origen. Estuvo, y está, en lo que una obra reorganiza, y en la infraestructura que permite o impide que esa reorganización ocurra, circule y sea reconocida. Una teoría del arte a la altura de la IA no es la que decide si la máquina es autora. Es la que deja de buscar el sentido en el punto de partida y lo busca donde de verdad se produce: en el campo de relaciones —técnicas, culturales, económicas— donde algo, viniera de donde viniera, altera lo que era posible.
The Thaler case will conclude on a false premise as long as the question remains one of origin. Europe, without intending to, is pointing elsewhere: towards the infrastructure. And there, not in the author’s signature, is where it is prudent to look.
This notebook remains open, as always, to anyone who wishes to discuss it.
- Benjamin, revisited but displaced
The reference is unavoidable, yet it is necessary to clarify in what sense it remains valid. Benjamin linked the authenticity of a work to its unique presence in time and space, and to what he termed its aura. He diagnosed its fracture under mechanical reproduction.
The contemporary situation introduces a twist. It is no longer merely a matter of the work being reproducible. It is that the threshold of origin has become uncertain: the question is not only whether the image can be multiplied, but from what type of process it proceeds and with what degree of human agency. If one wished to speak of a contemporary aura of the handmade—and I state this as an interpretation, not a discovery—it would no longer reside in absolute material uniqueness, but in the social credibility of the human origin. The aura becomes, in part, forensic.
- What this is not
This is not a condemnation of AI-generated art. It exists, possesses a market, opens new segments of demand, and introduces some individuals to collecting for the first time. I work professionally with these technologies; I do not position myself outside the problem. What I describe is not a judgement on the quality of synthetic work, but a shift in the locus where its value is determined.
No es tampoco una garantía. No hay base sólida todavía para afirmar que esta revalorización sea estructural y no en parte coyuntural, ni evidencia robusta de que etiquetas tipo «sin IA» produzcan una prima de precio medible en el mercado del arte. Es una tendencia legible, no una ley. Lo afirmo como lo que es.
And it is not a nostalgia for the unmediated. Every work has always been mediated by infrastructures. What changes is that the decisive mediation is no longer that of the medium, but that of the proof of provenance.
- The credible hand
The defensible thesis, based on the available material, is not that AI renders all handmade work more valuable. It is more precise: by transforming origin into a problem of reception, AI creates conditions for certain markets—those where authorship, narrative, collection, symbolic gifting, institutions, and archives are significant—to revalue that which possesses a human provenance that can be distinguished and substantiated.
The handmade ceases to be a category of production and becomes a category of certifiable reception. Value no longer depends solely upon the hand, but upon the hand being believable. And that belief, like almost everything decisive in the field of art, is not decided by looking at the work: it is decided in the infrastructure that surrounds it, signs it, and renders it traceable. The question that is worth maintaining when faced with an image is no longer just whether it is well-executed, but whether it can account, with proof, for where it originated.
On the open conversation
This text intersects with two lines of inquiry I have been developing in this public Notebook: the financialisation of the art market and the question of digital art post-NFT. Should anyone wish to intervene from the perspective of the economics of art, the sociology of taste, copyright law, or professional practice with generative tools, the notebook remains open.
See also: The criterion does not reside in the hand.
Sources
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Kreuzbauer, Robert; King, Dan; Basu, Shankha (2015). “The Mind in the Object—Psychological Valuation of Materialized Human Expression.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(4), 764–787. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000080
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