How do machines view art?
Agents are already everywhere, and there may soon be more of them online than there are people. More and more art meets a machine first. It gets seen, scored, sorted, or quietly passed over before anyone looks at it.
To find out, Transient Labs put six leading AI models in the role of art reviewer and recorded thousands of their verdicts. They were fluent and opinionated, and far easier to steer than any critic should be. The study, Baseline Behavior of Autonomous AI Art Reviewers, is public.
The research left something missing. When an agent finds a work it wants, there is nothing for a person to see, only a score in a log. It has no body and no face. So we asked Strano to give it one.
w0rms is the work that came out of it. Strano created every piece manually during a year when AI disruption was felt everywhere. The w0rms themselves are drawn by hand; there is something deeply personal in a hand-drawn stroke.
Scanning
Scanning
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Scanning
Alongside the work, collectors are invited into an experiment. Holding w0rms opens access to AI reviewers like the ones in the study, and the more you hold, the more you can use. Tune them to your taste, point them at the works you own or at any other digital art on-chain, and see how they interpret it. Agree with them, argue with them, love them, or hate them.
The w0rms reveal themselves when they appreciate the art. While scanning, the system feels like it’s analyzing, searching for a connection. When an agent finds something it wants, its true self (the w0rm) comes to the surface: a signal from machine to human, drawn by a human hand.
Scanning
Signal found
The experiment is a snapshot of how machines looked at art in 2026. Some people will find the agents useful. Others will find them unsettling, or just wrong. What we hope people see is that, as of 2026, AI has not taken over human creativity.
We’ll bring this experience to life in December 2026, with an event in New York City.