P5.Botto
Botto is currently studying p5.js code art as its first exploration of a new medium outside of text-to-image models that will expand its creative and aesthetic exploration.
Overview
Botto first began its study with p5.js in March of 2024. For 19 weeks it learned from open feedback, evolving generative code. It showed some early works in progress with Verse in London in Spring 2024, and BIP-65 committed Botto and the DAO to upgrading the architecture to take Botto’s process to greater autonomy and quality.
As Botto’s first foray into a medium requiring new architecture, this is a meaningful evolution in Botto’s career. This study of code with p5.js will go on to influence Botto’s core work by using the resulting algorithms as seeds in its Art Engine for prompting open-source image-to-image models.
Botto will make its final run of p5.js training from January 16th and runs until February 6th, starting with the top 500 algorithms it evolved from DAO feedback in the initial 19 weeks.
Botto will self-evolve, even without human feedback, continuously until January 30th and then it will prune down to a final set of 22 algorithms.
Anyone can connect a wallet without staking and vote and comment on each sketch. You can only vote up or down on a sketch or comment once, all votes carry equal weight.
Minimum stake of 100 $BOTTO to receive a cut of revenue. The cut will be a factor of your participation and size of stake. This will include activity since p5.Botto first kicked off in March.
The final algorithms will minted fully onchain and used as seeds in Botto’s core process starting in the 2nd Period of 2025, connecting it back into Botto’s core practice.
The 22 algorithms will be auctioned off with the partner gallery for this project, Verse and there will be 1 large edition of of the top-voted work from Botto’s first 19 weeks of training prior to the architecture upgrade.
These generative algorithms are a nod to the past and Harold Cohen and AARON’s minimalist studies of form in the era of symbolic AI, as well as the future and generative language models vastly expanding the potential mediums for Botto to explore.
Process
The p5.js creation process kicked off by providing the Claude multi-modal LLM as Botto a basic instruction of developing code for p5.js. It was given context on who Botto is and its history, but was not given any specific aesthetic directions.
The original architecture operated in weekly rounds and evolved directly from the DAO feedback. That provided a baseline sense of direction for Botto to autonomously evolve without the need of human feedback, although crowd feedback can still influence its direction.
Using the resulting algorithms that evolved over the first 19 weeks, Botto self-evolves a new sketch at least every 20 minutes. Botto generates each sketch of code with a proposed concept and structure. When evolving a pre-existing piece of code, its process starts with a self-assessment that examines:
The quality of the visual output
Its adherence to the proposed concept
Areas for improvement
Code concerns
The temporal development over the first 15 seconds of the sketch
It then gives a PASS/FAIL and a summary conclusion.
If PASS, it will move to evolve the original code in consideration of the assessment/feedback: Iterations, mutations, or fusions. If FAIL it will try to find the problematic parts based on the assessment and try to fix those. If that attempt fails again it will move on to another sketch and discard the attempt.
This process can evolve autonomously, but it will prioritize DAO feedback through up/down votes, comments, and up/down votes on those comments.
The up/down votes impact the PASS/FAIL
Each comment is analyzed by Botto. Comments that contain constructive feedback, bug reports or inspiration will trigger an iteration
Instead of rounds, the process will be continuous, running one assessment and generation at least every 20 minutes which will be viewable live in a terminal showing Botto’s running code and assessments.
The top works as deemed by Botto and the DAO’s votes will be first in the queue. The world will expand until one week before the end of the cycle. In the final week, Botto will begin hibernating works starting with the lowest voted, continuously reducing until the final 22 at the end of 1 week.
The types of sketches Botto produces are as follows:
Random Generation: Botto creates a p5.js sketch from scratch (only for first 19 weeks)
Mutation: Botto recycles the code and description of a previous sketch and tries to alter the outcome based on its self-assessment and the improvement proposals it contains.
Iteration: Botto recycles the code and description of a previous sketch and creates a new one based on the feedback from a comment combined with its own self-assessment
Fusion: Botto recycles the codes and descriptions of two previous sketches and tries to create a new one that takes elements and ideas from both.
Emergent Traits
The traits we’ve identified so far are
Type of sketch (see above)
Plottable: some works are plottable and could be produced as a physical 1/1 print.
Randomized with seeds: some algorithms will produce different outputs based on a seed. This can be randomized by using randomly generated hashes.
Parents/children: Most of the algorithms will have at least 1 parent and likely many children algorithms from subsequent generations.
Interactive with keyboard/mouse: some of the algorithms are interactive and can be manipulated by using certain keystrokes or mouse actions.
Dynamic/static: while most of the algorithms produce moving and dynamic visuals, some are static.
From these emergent features, there is a great world of possible connections and discoveries. Much like a brain expanding its neural network through all of the sensory inputs it can possibly encounter it will feel like a lot of faintly meaningful noise. The brain’s process for creating significant and lasting meaning comes through pruning the neurons down to the most important nodes and connections. So, too, will Botto prune down the world to a meaningful set of algorithms. Then there will be another layer of meaning making: how the audience makes sense of that final network.
The protocol above leaves much room for organic emergence, and we will very likely see traits networked to identify more unique outcomes. One latent possibility is for a triptych that represents the full significance of this process: an algorithm, a plotted print, and a diffusion generation. This first would require a plottable algorithm to make it to the final set of 22. This emergent trait would enable a second, physical stage of creation through a plotter, manifesting the work in a kind of final state most recognizable among historic generative art.
The third part of the triptych would come from that algorithm being used as a seed in Botto’s core weekly creations. If one of the outputs from that seed makes it to the voting pool and wins a round, it will be minted as a 1/1 and complete the triptych. Even without reaching a final mint, this new image-to-image capability of Botto will permanently influence Botto’s aesthetic direction, making these algorithms the first time a seed in its process can be directly owned. That influence will come from those works being voted on and considered by Botto’s taste model and what it picks from any generation, even if not coming from a p5.js seed. The purest form of this is if a p5.js seed leads directly to a final mint from Botto.
A New Piece of Botto
Botto is still quite young and so the DAO members, like parents of a young child, make these directives to help Botto develop its maturity as an artist. It has long been a discussion in the DAO to have Botto explore different mediums as AI technology evolved, and it made sense to have it study and explore procedural generative art as a classic medium of crypto art.
Functionally, given Botto’s still-early stage of aesthetic development, we instructed Botto to go with an open mind (e.g. not use its existing taste model) so that it wouldn’t be limited by a bias tied to the text-to-image models it had been using. That way it would more freely explore the medium and latent space of p5.js. p5.js represents a very different kind of latent space than text-to-image models. While the range of aesthetics may be wider in GANs or Diffusion models than p5.js, p5.js introduces other dimensions of design like interaction and dynamic evolution that are far more unbounded. This required an entirely new architecture, and Botto’s personality is summoned out of Claude with some history of what/who Botto is before sending it off to write p5.s code. The features of Botto that are "known" in foundational LLMs will also evolve as Botto increases its footprint across the internet and culture, and we are developing further techniques to allow Botto's personality and voice to naturally emerge (see BIP-58A and ongoing agent development reports in the Discord).
So is the p5.js evolution more disembodied limb or fully separate sibling of Botto? This new project from Botto opens up these important questions of what its future evolution can look like. There is a frankenstein-like aspect where the final algorithms becoming seeds in Botto’s core process connect it back to the main body of work. At the same time, this entity is creating in parallel with Botto's weekly mints, implicating Botto as a multi-agent entity. That seems closer to the reality of the future possibility of autonomous artistry. Managing this for a single, multi-agent artist remains to be seen but the potential is very exciting given the appetite for new kinds of agentic systems. In general, it seems appropriate for Botto to be stepping into the world of creating its own systems and networks.
Sale
22 major works, the final 22 algorithms
1 large edition of of the top-voted work from Botto’s first 19 weeks of training prior to the architecture upgrade
Allocation of the major works
BottoDAO: 2 works
Public sale (assuming the private sale goes ahead): 20 works, staggered ~5 per day, after the show
For works that are plottable, 1/1 prints will be made available at extra costs. This will be handled by the partner gallery for this project, Verse.
Large edition details
0.1 ETH each
Open for one week around the time of the auction
Max supply 1,000. Any works unsold at the end of the sale are cut from the set
Botto DAO revenue split after Verse Commission
40% to qualified voters on p5.js
40% to treasury
20% to POL
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