Primavera De Filippi on AI, Blockchain, and Living Artworks at Art Dubai Digital Summit

In April, Art Dubai Digital hosted its second Digital Summit, titled 'After the Technological Sublime,' featuring artist and legal scholar Primavera De Filippi. On 19 April, she spoke with ArtReview Editor-in-Chief Mark Rappolt about her blockchain-based lifeforms, including 'plantoids' and 'arborithms,' which evolve and reproduce as humans feed them cryptocurrencies. De Filippi, a copyright scholar, addressed legal challenges of generative AI, arguing that copyright issues arise at generation, not training, and that AI can expand human creativity if used ethically. She co-founded alias.studio, a platform for artists to train their own AI models. Her 'protocol art' approach encourages reproduction and co-authorship, contrasting with traditional copyright. The summit explored how art and technology address environmental, social, and cultural challenges.