AI likes playing Pokemon, plus Medieval Tapestries, and Benny Drop

📰 News Roundup

• The UK Just Made Copyright Optional (For Robots Only). UK newspaper readers saw “Make it fAIr” emblazoned across newstands this week. For once all publishers agreed on something, protesting a new UK Government law that would allow AI firms to scrape and train on copyrighted data. Seemingly giving in to big tech, over the protections of humans that create great work.

• Roko’s Basilisk has been turned into medieval tapestries. Christie’s is selling an art series by Grimes, Mac Boucher the Misalignment Museum and Matiya Jacobo which take form as painstakingly made medieval tapestries featuring Marie Antoinette. The series revolves around the Roko’s Basilisk thought experiment, the theory proposes that such an entity could punish individuals who were aware of its creation but failed to contribute to its development.

• AI is trying to catch ‘em all. Claude has been playing Pokemon Red for over 30 hours straight. With thousands watching the live stream simultaneously. The creators cite the details of the experiment below the feed, pointing out that “Claude has never been trained to play any Pokemon games”. The project is trying to achieve earning all 8 gym badges. Let’s go, Pikachu!

• AI Birds are in fashion. Stella McCartney’s latest campaign “Save what you love” uses AI generated birds to fulfil the creative. McCartney wanted to raise the point that “Some 50 percent of avian species are in decline” and decided to use one of the least environmentally friendly technologies to do it.

• Ye Olde Scribe Just Got an AI Upgrade. Eleven Labs just launched their speech-to-text model SCRIBE. Launching with 99 languages, and claiming a stunning 96.7% accuracy with English.

🛠 Tool of the Week: SUNO

Over a decade ago randomized music was being created with tools in music labs by sound engineers, but fast forward ten years and now anyone can make a seemingly chart-sounding hit in just a few seconds. Suno is leading the charge, having just released V4. Whether you’re an aspiring music producer, or have no musical bone in your body, spend twenty minutes today playing around with Suno, you won’t regret it.

🤌 Check it out: [HERE]

🎟️ Early Bird Tickets are nearly sold out

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👾 Interview: Benny Drop

Benjamin Benichou, better known as Benny Drop is one of the most followed and engaged with AI artists out there, starting his Masters of AI program after finding success with his high level AI artwork on social media. We had the chance to catch up with him for this weeks newsletter.

As one of the most proficient AI artists, I’d love to start at the beginning, how did you discover AI for yourself, and then apply that to art?

I’ve been at the intersection of art, design, and technology for a long time. Before fully diving into AI, I spent 15 years as a creative director, working with brands like Nike, adidas, and ASICS, leading high-impact campaigns that blended storytelling with innovation.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I launched a tech platform, Drop [usedrop.io], that automated engagement for brands and creators using AI on Instagram, a move that solidified my shift from creative direction into AI-powered experiences. But if I go further back, my connection to tech has always been there. I got my first PC at 11, paid for my studies by building websites early on, and was always drawn to the mechanics of creation, how ideas can be shaped and scaled with technology.

When I discovered generative AI, it immediately clicked. At first, I wasn’t thinking about fine art, I was thinking about how AI could speed up ideation and visualization. One of my first big AI projects was imagining Nike concept stores, fully immersive retail environments that, traditionally, would take weeks to render in 3D. With AI, I could generate these in minutes, and I kept refining until I reached a level where people couldn’t believe the images were AI-generated.

How do you personally see AI interacting in the art and creativity space, and how do you think that will evolve over the next year?

We’re in a moment where AI is not just assisting artists it’s redefining the creative process itself. The biggest shift we’re seeing now is the transition from AI being just a tool to AI becoming a co-creator, a medium, and even a form of creative intelligence that adapts to personal styles. Over the next year, I think we’ll see AI moving from ‘experimentation’ to ‘mastery’: Right now, many people are still at the surface level of prompting and outputs. In 2025, the best artists will be the ones who deeply train, fine-tune, and craft their AI models to reflect a unique voice. I also think we’ll see more artistic ownership. The biggest challenge ahead is establishing how AI-generated art can be truly owned. Whether that’s through custom-trained models, proprietary data sets, or blockchain authentication, the next wave of AI art will be about scarcity and uniqueness in an era of infinite generation.

Your artwork has a beautiful signature style, with Samurai and Oriental references throughout your body of work, what is the catalyst for this direction of your artwork?

I’ve always been fascinated by the duality of control and chaos, tradition and futurism. The samurai archetype represents discipline, ritual, and a deep respect for craft, while AI represents something unpredictable, generative, and boundless. My work lives at that intersection, where precision meets the unknown. Visually, I draw inspiration from Japanese armor, ukiyo-e compositions, and cyberpunk aesthetics, but I reinterpret them through the lens of modern mythology, digital surrealism, and AI-driven storytelling. Samurai in my work aren’t just historical figures, they are avatars of a future where warriors exist beyond time, space, and identity.

One of your pieces was recently turned into an oil paint artwork for Nobel Los Angeles. What are your feelings about AI artwork being able to be displayed in a more traditional, tactile way?

I love it. AI shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for traditional art, but as a way to evolve it. There’s something powerful about taking an artwork that was born from an algorithmic, digital process and reinterpreting it in oil, ink, or sculpture. It’s like bringing something from the future into the physical world—and that tension is what makes it exciting. AI-generated works still struggle with perceived legitimacy in the fine art world, but the moment they take form in tangible mediums, whether that’s paint, metal, textiles, or even AR/VR installations, they become more than just “AI art.” They become part of the broader conversation of art itself. For me, the goal isn’t just to create AI art, it’s to create art that stands on its own, regardless of the tools used to make it.

The end quality of your work is remarkable, for someone looking to achieve a similar level, should they be working more on models and loras, prompt work, or layering AI services? Where do you feel the biggest gain is right now for 2025? 

Thanks! Right now, the biggest separator between surface-level AI art and truly professional-level AI work is control. If you want to achieve mastery, you can’t rely on raw generations alone, you need to orchestrate and shape the AI to match your vision. The future belongs to artists who own their visual identity, and that means fine-tuning models to generate work that is distinctly yours, that is achieved by Custom Model Training & LoRAs.

The next item I’d focus on is AI Workflow Stacking. Using Midjourney,Flux, ControlNet, Magnific, Kling, etc. and manual post-processing together instead of relying on a single tool. Lastly, Physical & Hybrid Work. The artists who push AI into prints, sculptures, animation, and interactive experiences will be the ones who define the next era of AI-powered creativity. It’s less about prompting better and more about designing AI-powered workflows that allow you to express something beyond what the AI alone would generate.

Lastly, what’s next?

There’s a lot coming up. I’m working on some big releases with brands, launching new campaigns, and preparing for my first solo show, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I’m also dropping new limited-edition prints and physical pieces, pushing AI into formats that go beyond digital. For anyone interested in learning AI, I’m launching a new version of Masters of AI soon, which will be a big upgrade from the first one. It’s going to focus more on real workflows, advanced techniques, and pushing beyond just prompting. AI has evolved so much in the past year, and I want to make sure the course reflects that.

AI & Creativity Summit April 24, New York City

Til next time,

Dani Van de Sande (Founder), James Joseph (The Weekly’s Editor) & the Artist and the Machine team.

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