UA German photographer, who won the Sony World Photography Award in the Creativity category, turned down the award after revealing that the photograph that earned him the distinction was actually an artificial intelligence (AI) creation.
The prize was awarded to Boris Eldagsen, last week, for the work entitled ‘Pseudomnesia: The Electrician’, which shows a black and white image of two women from different generations.
However, the photographer admitted that the objective was to understand whether competitions of this type are ready to deal with images created with artificial intelligence, in addition to the need to generate a discussion about what the future of photography will be.
“I entered like a ‘cheeky monkey’ to find out if competitions are ready for AI-created images. They are not. We, the world of photography, need to start a debate. A debate about what we consider to be photography and what we don’t is. Is the ‘hat’ of photography big enough for us to invite AI images to enter, or is that a mistake? With the rejection of the prize I hope to accelerate this debate”, said Boris Eldagsen, in a statement quoted by the international press.
For the photographer, “AI images and photography should not compete with each other in a prize like this”, since “they are different entities”.
However, despite the controversy generated around the award, the jury admitted that they knew that the image had been created through artificial intelligence.
A spokesman for the World Photography organization indicated that, during conversations with the artist, before being announced as the winner, he had confirmed that the work was a “co-creation” of his image, using artificial intelligence.
“He explained to us how, after two decades of photography, his artistic focus changed, in order to explore the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence and emphasized that the image strongly depends on the wealth of photographic knowledge”, he said.
In addition, according to the same source, the category of Creativity of the competition “accepts several experimental approaches for the creation of images, from cyanotypes and radiographs to the use of cutting-edge technology” – which led the organization, after speaking with the photographer , assuming that the “entry met the criteria” for the category.
“Furthermore, we were keen to participate in further discussion on this topic and we welcome Boris’ desire for dialogue, preparing questions for a Q&A session with him on our website. As he has decided to decline his award, we have suspended our inquiries. activities with him and, at his request, we removed him from the competition”, concluded.
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