An incident earlier this year when an AI-generated image won a photography competition in Australia after its originality fooled the jury, this time it seems to have been reversed. Another Australian photographer was disqualified from the competition after the photo he took looked “a bit like AI” by the jury. But the photo was actually a real photo taken with an iPhone and there was no artificial intelligence intervention.
The photograph in question was taken by Suzi Dougherty, and it shows her son posing with two models at a Gucci exhibition held at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia. The panel of judges initially liked the photo, but after further discussion explained, “We can’t be sure if it was created by artificial intelligence, but we can’t allow the photo to be accepted into the competition because we’re skeptical.” Furthermore, he cited Dougherty’s photo as an example of ‘fake’: “We want the images to come from YOUR real-life experience, not from cyberspace.”
The response did not satisfy anyone.
Four days later, the contest organizers shared that Dougherty had contacted them to say the photo was real, adding, “It’s a great play on what’s real and what’s not in our world. “Unfortunately, the timing was not good for the participant, given that artificial intelligence is such a hot topic.”
This statement was not an acceptable response to many in the photography community, who demanded an apology from the vilified photographer. Contest organizer Iain Anderson later issued a full apology “out of heartfelt regret.” Dougherty, who seemed kinder and more forgiving than many, replied, “I’m happy to be a part of a mistake, I have great faith in making mistakes and what can be accomplished with them.”
Real-like artificial intelligence-generated images and surreal-looking human-made images make this era challenging and confusing for art competitions. So it’s understandable to some extent that many organizers and judges are in a quandary.
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