Genie Arms Artists With AI in New “Derivatives” Drop With Defaced, Jake Fried & More

The intersection of artificial intelligence and human creativity has emerged as one of the most exciting sectors today — and a new web3 startup believes artists shouldn’t have to explore it alone. 

Genie aims to revolutionize digital art by enabling artists to train their own AI models and create unique works through sophisticated AI-powered creative companions. By utilizing a combination of proprietary and open-source algorithms to tailor AI responses to individual artistic preferences, Genie helps translate artist preferences into high-quality digital artworks. 

In addition to its role in art creation, Genie can act as a conduit for artist-audience interaction. Genie’s integration with the Base platform offers artists various tools to engage with their communities and monetize their work, such as interactive art collections and limited-edition drops.

Genies’ flagship “Derivatives” project challenges conventional notions of authorship by exploring how AI can replicate and enhance human creativity with an emphasis on remix culture. Featuring nine leading digital artists, the project has unveiled Defaced and Jake Fried as the inaugural contributors and will announce additional artists every day this week.

The inaugural “Derivatives” drop will open on May 24 at 11 a.m. BST with a 48-hour open generative AI art series on Base. The series will be priced at 0.0069 ETH and feature unique outputs and on-mint creation via Highlight. 

nft now caught up with Genie founder Orkhan to learn more about the project and Defaced and Fried to discuss their involvement.

nft now: What is the vision behind the Genie project?

Orkhan: In a time when large AI models are proliferating with little consideration for intellectual property, my vision and mission are to make ethical generative AI art fully accessible to artists of all backgrounds and levels of AI sophistication. I wanted to create intuitive tools that guide artists through the process of training their own AI model to deploy it on the blockchain without prior technical knowledge. 

As such, Genie is being established as the premier generative AI art platform that is fully web3-native and blockchain-enabled.

In practice, Genie will act as a creative AI companion that understands the artist’s style and codes at a deeper level. It is capable of creating new art inspired by the artist at the press of a button and with a high degree of customization. 

I envision Genie becoming a powerful engagement tool with collectors and communities. It will provide artists with new ways to monetize their style on-chain, allowing their communities to create derivative/fan art while fully controlling their unique IP. 

How did the project come together?

Orkhan: Frankly, it is the culmination of my 10 years of involvement in digital art and web3 and experimenting with new AI technologies to create my distinctive art portfolio. Over that time, I have built my own tools and techniques, and the recent coming of age of AI-generated art made me realise it was time to package them into a cohesive and intuitive tool and let other artists experiment with them. 

Also, I have always aspired to create the Art Blocks equivalent for this artistic segment and to help establish generative AI as a respected and better-understood discipline within the digital art world. I deeply respect Snowfro, and what he did for generative art is of historical importance. I have always wanted to emulate it within my own field.

My collector and advisor, Tyler was one of the first people who believed in Genie’s potential, and we joined forces at the start of the year to bring it to life. We spent the first few months working on the branding and go-to-market strategy while I refined my suite of tools to make them commercially ready. We are now at the stage when the foundations of the project are strong, and we can start spreading the word about Genie!

What does ethical generative AI mean?

Orkhan: The issue of copyright infringement by large AI platforms has been talked about at length in the media. It is now a well-known fact that those generative models can create their impressive visuals by training on large datasets gathered from public sources like the internet, and, in many instances, “steal” intellectual property for commercial purposes. It poses many legal questions that are still in the process of being resolved. 

Genie intends to address those issues by letting artists control which dataset they use to train their AI model and giving them full control over how it gets distributed or monetized.   

You mentioned that Genie will be “fully web3 native.” Can you elaborate on that?

Orkhan: First, the blockchain provides the perfect foundation to enforce copyright compliance, payment distribution, and asset storage. It offers a level of traceability and transparency not available with other technologies and lets you infallibly tie each output (the NFT) to its source (dataset). I intend to make “ provenance” one of the pillars of my product using the capabilities of the blockchain. For this integration, I made the decision to work with Base, as it provides the speed, low friction, and high reliability one needs for mass generative minting experiences. 

Secondly, I want Genie to become an inescapable tool for artists to engage with their community. Community is the most powerful thing in Web3, and we are building tools for them to create fan-derived art of their favorite artists. 

Finally, there are a few more web3-related surprises coming down the line. All I will say is – make a $WISH ;), and remember the early adopters always get rewarded in this space.

How can artists and communities get involved?

Orkhan: Genie begins its journey with curated artist collaborations, but we also aim to work with museums, foundations & brands along the way. Those collaborative drops will demonstrate the possibilities offered by Genie until the public launch in Q4. We want to scale safely and get the product to a perfect spot for mass usage.

During that period, Genie will be available only by invitation or artist recommendation. Artists can submit their projects on our website and, subject to suitability and internal guidelines, they will be granted access and a dedicated team to create seamless genAI experiences for themselves and their communities. 

Tell us about your inaugural “Derivatives” drop.

Orkhan: Across the domain of art, derivatives occupy an elusive niche. They ubiquitously serve as tributes to illustrious artists and their work yet also bear the stigma of opportunistic ventures that may exploit the original creator’s intellectual property. 

Derivatives poses a further question: Imagine a scenario where derivatives originate directly from the artists’ own creative impetus, emerging as outcomes of a synergistic endeavor with the most sophisticated technological imitators. Would a discerning public retreat from such creations or embrace them as extensions of the artist’s explorative narrative?

Derivatives, a first long-form generative AI art collection, is being announced today, and the mint is due to start on the 24th of May, on Base. Nine artists have been invited to collaborate with me and to try the infinite possibilities offered by Genie. It will run for 48h on Highlight.xyz and will take the form of an open generative mint, letting people collect licensed derivative creations inspired by some of the most iconic digital artists of our time at an affordable price point. EACH piece will be unique and created upon mint! 

For more information, I would invite people to check out the mint website.

What was the process of curating Genie’s first collaborative drop?

Orkhan: This might well have been the most challenging part of this drop! My partner Tyler and I wanted to set the bar VERY high for the inaugural event. Often in this space, you only have one chance to make a splash, and we didn’t want to miss our shot at putting Genie on everyone’s radar. Between the two of us, we had an extensive rolodex of artist contacts, but many of them were either busy with other engagements or reluctant to dabble with generative AI. It was well worth the effort, though, and I am extremely proud that we managed to put together this impressive selection of renowned artists who mastered their signature styles (glitch art, pixel art, illustration, character art, line art, CGI style, and more). They are truly some of the most revered digital artists in the world, and I am humbled by the fact that they agreed to work with my Genie and me to bring the “Derivatives” experience into being. I will reveal all nine in the week, but I am happy and proud to share that Defaced and Jake Fried are the first two artists who have collaborated with me for this drop! 

What’s next for Genie?

Orkhan: We plan to launch several other drops between now and the public deployment of Genie in Q4. We aim to collaborate with many different art styles. Our next collaborative group drop are likely to focus on other digital art branches like photography, meme art, and more. I also plan on bringing traditional art into the ethical generative AI art conversation. I am partnering with several agencies and galleries to onboard museums and foundations of iconic traditional artists. If we are successful, it could truly be a turning point for our space, and, of course for Genie!

How did you get involved in the Genies project?

Defaced: I met Orkhan at Art Basel Miami last year and we became mates after that. Couple months later he ran me through the idea and asked if I wanted to play about with training a model, I was apprehensive but soon agreed. The apprehension came from a fear of a loss of agency combined with the valid complaints of thousands of artists online with their work being stolen and used in a dataset for someone else’s profit.

Jake Fried: When Orkhan asked me to create a custom generative AI model trained on my work, I immediately said yes, because I was simply curious and interested to see what it could do, what the results could look like, to see what was possible. My work is deeply personal and complex, my films are hand-drawn over many months and years – what insights could these new tools provide? Can it truly recreate what I do, inform my creative process? I find these questions and the experimental nature of this project fascinating.  

⁠Tell us about the work you’re releasing

Defaced: The work is trained on a few hundred of my works from around 2020. The team then divided up my work into styles to create more accurate models. Over the past few months, there’s been an ongoing conversation with Orkhan and me to dial the style in and get something that reflects my work.

There was a fair bit of back-and-forth regarding tweaking the models. For example, when using the keyword ‘clown,’ it’d typically generate a nightmarish portrayal of a sinister clown with my style, which wasn’t really my cup of tea. I used to have clownophobia growing up.

How is Genie collaborating with your works?

Jake Fried: Genie is an AI model that generates derivative animations based on my work. When people mint, Genie autonomously creates novel ideas. The resulting body of work remains a mystery to me and depends on the model, the prompts, and those who mint. 

⁠What excites you most about the project?

Defaced: Personally, it’s made me think a lot more about the relationship between art, creativity, and AI. It also asks a lot of questions to which I’m still unsure of the answers. I’m typically more attracted to projects with which I’m not 100% comfortable.

It’s a weird feeling seeing something so closely mimic your work. Your artistic style is a lifelong amalgamation of taste and taste which when outsourced to a decent level creates a sort of cognitive dissonance which is thrilling yet uncomfortable.

The Genie project will be a fun showcase of what we’ve been able to create so far.

Jake Fried: I’m most excited by the possibilities it provides for people to engage, explore, and understand my work and creativity at a deeper level. By expanding upon and reinterpreting my art and vision, these tools allow collector involvement in the creation process and give us all the opportunity to find new avenues of meaning and discovery in my work.

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