In early April, it was announced that one of the winners of the Sony Photography Awards was Boris Eldagsen, who submitted a photo called The Electrician. Eldagsen, on the other hand, told Sony after this statement that the photo was not actually a photo and stated that he created it through an artificial intelligence, which he did not name.
The photo was part of an online art collection that Eldagsen called the Pseudomneisa. The artist’s personal webpage reads: “These images were imagined by AI and re-edited 20 to 40 times through AI image generators.”
So why did he submit these pictures to a big photo contest? In an interview with The Register, Eldagsen says he wants to start a discussion about how AI will change the way we look at art and photography in the future: “I applied to competitions as a mischievous monkey to find out if AI images were up for entry. And I don’t think they’re ready. We, the world of photography, need an open discussion. We have to talk about what we want to accept as photographs and what we don’t want. Is the umbrella of the photo big enough to invite AI images – or would that be a mistake?”
The organizers of the competition announced that although the true origins of the painting were revealed, the first place was valid. Eldagsen nevertheless refused the award. This prize was $5,000. It also included some Sony camera products and a trip to London to see the winning photos.
A spokesperson for the competition told The Guardian that they felt the painting met the criteria for this category and supported its participation: “We know the importance of this topic and its impact on image making today. We look forward to exploring this topic further through our various channels and programs and to join the conversation around it.”
With the release of more AI image generation tools such as DALL-E, MidJourney, and Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator, these debates will no doubt escalate. However, it is not easy to predict to what extent artificial intelligence will be accepted in the art world.
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