WTF?! Bear in mind the tales about folks getting into AI-generated photos into photograph competitions and profitable? In an ironic twist, the alternative has now occurred: somebody entered an actual {photograph} into a contest for artificially generated photos and gained, resulting in the photographer being disqualified.

Miles Astray’s picture, titled F L A M I N G O N E, was entered into the AI class of the Individuals’s Vote Award on the 1839 Images Awards. Artwork Information writes that judges for the competitors included representatives from the New York Instances, the public sale home Christie’s, and publishing home Phaidon.

Astray was shocked when the judges awarded his entry the third-place prize within the competitors – it was additionally voted the perfect picture by the general public within the Individuals’s Selection class – because it hadn’t been created utilizing AI. This was an actual {photograph} of a flamingo, though it does seem like lacking its head; the chicken is scratching its stomach.

Nature nonetheless outdoes the machine and also you helped show it! My image “F L A M I N G O N E” gained the Individuals’s Vote and a Jury Award within the synthetic intelligence class of 1839 Awards – the twist: the photograph of a flamingo whose head is seemingly lacking, isn’t AI-generated. pic.twitter.com/kgf1x2rrWj

– Miles Astray (@MilesAstray) June 13, 2024

Astray writes that he entered the picture to show that “human-made content material has not misplaced its relevance, that Mom Nature and her human interpreters can nonetheless beat the machine, and that creativity and emotion are greater than only a string of digits.”

The photographer provides that he seen the instances of AI photos profitable photograph competitions. It occurred final yr when Berlin-based “photomedia artist” Boris Eldagsen participated within the World Images Group’s Sony World Images Awards, which affords prizes that embody $5,000 money and Sony digicam tools. His picture (beneath) gained the Artistic class, although he refused the prize because it was AI-generated. There was additionally the case of a Midjourney creation profitable an artwork competitors in 2022.

Astray says his shot was the right candidate to reverse this pattern as it’s surreal and straightforward to think about that it is not actual, though it’s very pure – he clicked the shutter on the actual second the flamingo’s head was hidden whereas it was scratching its stomach. He says this assault on AI and its moral implications outweigh the moral implications of deceiving the judges and the general public. Astray added that he considers this a win for “Mom Nature herself.”

“I am glad to see that this experiment confirmed my speculation: there’s nothing extra implausible and artistic than Mom Nature herself,” Astray wrote.

Whereas the picture has now been disqualified from the competitors, ‌Lily Fierman, the director of Artistic Useful resource Collective, says there have been no arduous emotions, and that the flamingo could be the start line for a dialogue on the usage of AI.

PetaPixel writes that whereas that is the primary occasion of an actual photograph profitable an AI competitors, a real image was disqualified from a pictures contest final yr after the judges wrongly suspected that it was created by an AI.