The photo above has won a Sony World Photography Award in the creative open category, but there’s a problem. It’s AI-generated.
After winning, Berlin-based artist Boris Eldagsen posted on his blog: “Thank you for selecting my image and making this a historic moment, as it is the first AI generated image to win in a prestigious international PHOTOGRAPHY competition,”
Since then, the image has become the subject of a huge controversy in the AI art vs human art debate.
The award winning photo in full
AI images and photography are different entities, and even Eldagsen seems to think so. He has refused to accept the award, emphasising on that AI and photography should not be competing in the same category. “AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.”
Why did he submit AI art into a photography competition?
While people are now slowly warming towards the powerful qualities and usefulness of artificial intelligence and its scope in terms of generating impressive images and graphics, there are folks who strongly believe that AI can represent genuine human artistic expression.
Eldagsen further wrote in his blog, “I applied as a cheeky monkey, to find out if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not.”
Boris Eldagsen
Eldagsen and the World Photography Organization (WPO), which hands out the Sony World Photography Awards, have locked horns over the issue. WPO is now claiming that they were aware that the image was co-created using AI before he was announced as the winner.
