Photographer Refuses To Accept Top Prize After Admitting His Winning Photo Is AI-Generated

 A professional photographer is turning down a prestigious award after revealing that the winning image was actually artificial intelligence-generated.

German artist Boris Eldagsen said he intentionally submitted the faux photo to help drive the debate about AI-generated images, per an IGN report. 

Eldagsen was among the winners in the Sony World Photographer Awards, which published the names of finalists in March. He won for the photograph “Electricia,” which was described in Sony’s press release as “a haunting black-and-white portrait of two women from different generations, reminiscent of the visual language of 1940s family portraits.”

The German photographer admitted it was a fake as part of a recent blog post, “How many of you knew or suspected that it was AI generated? Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it?” Eldagsen wrote.

He argued that “AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this” and confirmed that he would not attend the ceremony or accept the award. 

“I applied as a cheeky monkey, to find out, if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not,” Eldagsen wrote. “We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not. Is the umbrella of photography large enough to invite AI images to enter – or would this be a mistake?”

“With my refusal of the award I hope to speed up this debate,” he said.

The image was removed from the Sony World Photographer Awards website. A spokesperson for the World Photography Organization said Eldagsen had revealed the “co-creation” of the image using AI technology before he was announced as the winner, per The Guardian.

Conversations about AI potentially being misused are becoming more frequent. Recently, software developer Mckay Wrigley wrote on Twitter that AI would continue to see “exponential growth” and that skeptics should take note because it will “hit them like an asteroid.”

“I saw it happening from well before GPT-1, which is why I tried to warn the public for years,” billionaire businessman Elon Musk wrote in the replies.

“The only one on one meeting I ever had with Obama as President I used not to promote Tesla or SpaceX, but to encourage AI regulation,” he wrote.

Musk also just signed an open letter with hundreds of other technology leaders calling for a six-month moratorium on developing AI solutions stronger than GPT-4 until the potential dangers of the technology can be evaluated.

A recent Goldman Sachs report found that most jobs in the U.S. will be “complemented” by AI, but up to 7% will be “replaced” by the technology, as The Daily Wire previously reported.