My Elo Rating: 404
Video, 2025
About the artwork
In an era where artificial intelligence confidently defeats world chess champions, the very nature of the game is changing. When Deep Blue beat Kasparov, humanity faced a new question: can a machine truly think? Today, neural networks play millions of games per second, learning not from books but from each other—outplaying us at our own creation.
But maybe the real question isn’t about who wins. A machine doesn’t know thrill, fear, or the joy of victory. For AI, chess is an endless tree of possibilities; for a human, it’s history, emotion, struggle, and defeat.
404 is an error code: “not found.” My Elo rating isn’t just a number. It’s in the process itself—the mistakes, the unexpected moves, the small victories and defeats that make up the game of life. Who are we really playing against—the machine, ourselves, or our past? And what happens when algorithms start to dictate the rules?
Sound design
Audio explanation
Listen to don't Buy discuss this work.
Don’t Buy is a visual artist who creates digital paintings, videos, and GIFs using artificial intelligence and mixed media. Embracing a moniker that itself subverts consumerist language, he approaches art-making with a hacker’s spirit – repurposing AI technology to explore the beauty of errors and the aesthetics of early digital culture. In his work, glitchy abstractions and retro graphics converge to address themes of identity and imperfection in the online era. “When a cold, mechanical machine makes a mistake, it becomes a little more human,” Don’t Buy notes, reflecting his view that technological faults can reveal human qualities. This philosophy underscores much of his art, which often highlights the serendipity of algorithmic mistakes and the nostalgia of outdated interfaces.
A participant in Fellowship’s AI art program, Don’t Buy has presented projects that encapsulate his ethos. Notably, his series 404: SELF NOT FOUND (2024) is an assemblage of AI-generated imagery probing our entanglement with digital identities and the nature of error. Through a mix of dark humor and experimental technique, he transforms mundane clicks and computer glitches into artistic meditation.