New York gallery exhibit features artwork created with unreleased AI tools from OpenAI.

• On Friday, OpenAI unveiled an art gallery partnership, granting artists exclusive use of its unpublished AI technology for a New York exhibition.
• Six months ago, talks began between Strada Gallery founder Paul Hill and OpenAI about a project that Hill had suggested.
• OpenAI stated that it is still in research mode regarding the release of Sora because of discussions with policymakers.

On Friday, OpenAI unveiled a partnership with a New York City art gallery that offers artists exclusive access to advanced AI technology.

The exhibit, "Strada Nuova: New Road," at Strada Gallery will feature a diverse group of artists, including brilliant researchers, academics, and creators working between physical and digital artwork, for three weeks, as stated by Strada founder Paul Hill.

Hill disclosed to CNBC that he contacted OpenAI to propose the project. The discussions commenced six months ago and eventually resulted in an agreement, with OpenAI providing artists with access to its Sora video generator, Voice Engine voice generator, DALL-E 3 image generator, ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, educational resources, and artist stipends.

An interdisciplinary artist named Minne Atairu, who has been using AI in art for four years, creates art that highlights "understudied gaps" in Black historical archives. For her latest exhibit, she used Sora to create an AI-generated video, "Regina Gloriana," inspired by supernatural horror films produced in Nigeria in the 1990s.

The application of AI in art has sparked a heated discussion, with numerous lawsuits being filed over copyright infringement and training data.

In California federal court, a class-action lawsuit was recently filed against Anthropic, an Amazon-backed AI startup, by three authors over allegations of copyright infringement. Last year, a group of prominent U.S. authors, including Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Jodi Picoult, sued OpenAI over alleged copyright infringement in using their work to train ChatGPT. Additionally, in January, a group of artists filed a class-action lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt over alleged copyright infringement by their AI image-generation tools.

Strada's Hill stated to CNBC that all great artworks are controversial, and he has never encountered a significant artwork that is not. The only artworks that are not discussed are those that lack importance or significance.

Across different industries, AI development is viewed as an industrial revolution of sorts by Hill.

"Black folks are often the last to receive tools historically, but this next industrial revolution, we can ensure that marginalized communities are not left behind. This exhibition features six black artists, including one from Kyoto, Japan."

Some of Hill's artists shared the sentiment of not being left behind in terms of access to AI tools or representation within them.

Curry Hackett, a transdisciplinary designer and public artist, shared with CNBC how he employs AI to reimagine the creation and sourcing of images. His exhibit project extends from his previous public art project, "Ugly Beauties," where he used Midjourney to manually collage images together for a 50-foot-long scene suspended in a Brooklyn plaza, "to explore Black relationships with nature and plants." In the Strada exhibit, the same work is suspended in the gallery, and Hackett utilized Sora to animate the still canvas scenes.

"Hackett acknowledged the existence of environmental, political, and ethical concerns regarding AI, but also emphasized the importance of utilizing AI to create innovative media. As a black artist, Hackett highlighted the need for underrepresented groups to actively engage with these tools in order to showcase their creativity."

Hackett acknowledged the concerns of people in creative fields regarding the models being trained on data without consent. He believes that the industry needs to establish norms and best practices to ensure that individuals are comfortable using these tools.

Sophia Wilson, a photographer and visual artist, specializes in film photography and hand-prints her images in a color darkroom. She explained to CNBC that she is proficient in using Photoshop and other retouching software, and she considers AI tools like Sora as an extension of her creative process.

Wilson stated that while nothing is perfect and there are drawbacks to everything, he views imperfections as an opportunity to enhance his work as an artist. He sees them as a retouching or editing tool rather than something to be feared, as he wants to avoid being part of the crowd that falls behind in history.

Wilson captured Black women bodybuilders in New York for the Strada exhibit and animated some of her still images with Sora. Additionally, she utilized OpenAI's Voice Engine to read transcribed interviews with the subjects.

"Wilson stated that AI is reading the story as an audio part accompaniment. He explained that this approach ensures that everyone is treated equally, regardless of their voices or inflections. Black women, in particular, are often judged for their unique voices and accents. Wilson wanted to eliminate this bias by having a uniform voice that doesn't allow for discrimination based on voice or inflection."