AI wins major photo award

There has been a historic moment in human (and AI) history in that for a first time, a computer has created 'art' that has been awarded a prestigious photography prize - the Sony World Photography Awards.

The Awards have been running for 16 years and is currently made up of 4 competitions: Professional, Open, Student and Youth. This year's Open Creative Catagory winner by German artist Boris Eldagsen, entitled Pseudomnesia: The Electrician, was revealed to be a work created by AI. Eldagsen fessed up and refused his prize and admitted that he has been a "cheeky monkey".

A statement from his website reads:

“Thank you for selecting my image and making this a historic moment, as it is the first AI generated image to win in a prestigous international PHOTOGRAPHY competition.

"How many of you knew or suspected that it was AI generated? Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it?

"AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award."

Eldagsen said in an interview with German media outlet ReVue that he began entering his AI images into photo competitions last year: "I started applying with my synthetic images last autumn to find out whether festivals and competitions were prepared for them. At that time, AI was nothing new, so it could have been taken into account. I was among the finalists in three competitions with the same image and explained the authorship of the image to the organisers.

"The result was always the same: They felt cheated, but didn't want to talk about it. In the case of the Sony Awards, I was contacted in January and provided the details to my Instagram account and the webpage where the creation was described in detail. If anyone had looked at that, it would have become obvious that the images were AI creations."

Following Eldagsen's rejection of the award, the World Photography Awards removed his name and image from the competition website.

“In our correspondence, he explained how following ‘two decades of photography, my artistic focus has shifted more to exploring creative possibilities of AI generators’ and further emphasising the image heavily relies on his ‘wealth of photographic knowledge’. As per the rules of the competition, the photographers provide the warranties of their entry," a World Photography Awards spokesperson told The Guardian.

“The creative category of the open competition welcomes various experimental approaches to image making from cyanotypes and rayographs to cutting-edge digital practices. As such, following our correspondence with Boris and the warranties he provided, we felt that his entry fulfilled the criteria for this category, and we were supportive of his participation.

“Additionally, we were looking forward to engaging in a more in-depth discussion on this topic and welcomed Boris’ wish for dialogue by preparing questions for a dedicated Q&A with him for our website.

“As he has now decided to decline his award we have suspended our activities with him and in keeping with his wishes have removed him from the competition.

"Given his actions and subsequent statement noting his deliberate attempts at misleading us, and therefore invalidating the warranties he provided, we no longer feel we are able to engage in a meaningful and constructive dialogue with him.

“We recognise the importance of this subject and its impact on image-making today. We look forward to further exploring this topic via our various channels and programmes and welcome the conversation around it.

"While elements of AI practices are relevant in artistic contexts of image-making, the awards always have been and will continue to be a platform for championing the excellence and skill of photographers and artists working in the medium.”

All photo competitions have strict rules governing what a 'real' photo is. The only 'AI' that is usually accepted is in the form of focus stacking or HDR – both situations in which the camera remains completely static. Other AI situations may include 'photo stitching' panoramas.

Controversies are fairly rare in the photo awards world and photography art world, and it is usually to do with plagiarism. For example the Australian photographers Lisa Saad or Ben Ali Ong.

You can read more on Eldagsen's website here.