"60 Minutes" published a similar story in 2024 and the chunk of Carrara marble needed to produce a large statue cost about $300,000. To carve a statue entirely by hand from it would be more than a year's labor, so add another $100k+ to that. If a robot can do the boring part of removing the waste, that makes sculptures more accessible. And could result in an increase in the number of sculptors in the world who are doing the finishing parts that add beauty to the stone.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robots-future-of-sculpture-some...

Where I have a problem with the approach is the use of 3D scanners and robots to mass-produce copies of existing masterpieces. If everyone has an exact copy of "David" then the value of the original is diminished.

If 3D design tools are used to create original pieces of art, produced with the assistance of robots (and maybe some that were never technically possible before) that's interesting.