‘Beyond disturbing’: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg roam as robotic dogs | Watch

Beeple’s new installation, Regular Animals, has become a major talking point at Art Basel Miami Beach. Robot dogs with billionaire and artist faces wandered around and produced NFT art prints.

Each animatronic dog wears a lifelike mask of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Pablo Picasso or Andy Warhol. Two of them are modeled on Beeple himself.

All seven robots were sold to private collectors for about $100,000 ( ₹90 lakh) each. Still, they were allowed to tour the fair.

Fairgoers can still buy part of the wild installation. The robot dogs ‘drop’ 1,028 prints labeled “Excrement Sample”. Each comes with a warning that the artwork may disgust regular viewers and amuse “degenerate collectors”.

“Genuinely terrifying,” reacted a social media user.

“Beyond disturbing,” commented another.

Another posted, “I wish I had never seen this in my feed.”

Of these prints, 256 carry a barcode that lets buyers scan and claim an NFT. Beeple’s earlier NFT “Everydays” sold for $69.3 million ( ₹626 crore) at Christie’s in 2021. So, these new pieces may also become highly valuable.

As the dogs walk, they click photos, then squat and release prints in the style of the face. They carry, which many viewers found surreal and disturbing at the same time.

Modern life ‘through the eyes of AI and robotics’

According to Beeple, the work highlights how tech leaders shape what people see through powerful algorithms. It reflects how modern life is increasingly filtered through AI and robotics.

“He’s another person who shapes how we see the world. So, he needed to be in the piece,” Beeple said about the Elon Musk dog.

“You’re increasingly seeing the world through the eyes of AI and robotics. I think that will happen more and more,” he told Page Six.

“It used to be that we saw the world interpreted through the eyes of artists. But, now Mark Zuckerberg and Elon, in particular, control a huge amount of how we see the world,” he said.

“We see the world through their eyes because they control these very powerful algorithms that decide what we see. And, so we wanted to kind of play with that idea,” he added.

Tech billionaires were not only parodied in the artwork, but some of them were also present at the fair.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin was seen walking through the booths. However, it is unknown if he viewed Beeple’s display.