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Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by porbelm on Saturday April 15, 2023 @01:41PM (#35582749)
What he did was awesome, and the complete silence from the organizers is such a laff, I think they are so effing embarrassed lol
Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by porbelm on Saturday April 15, 2023 @01:42PM (#35582769)
Just to clarify; I don't think AI-generated images have anything to do in a traditional photography contest. Prompt-creators can create their own festival.

With blackjack. And hookers.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by PeterisP on Saturday April 15, 2023 @02:50PM (#35583445)
I think it has some conceptual value - if many artists are saying that the ML models can't create real art and only get a mediocre rehash of existing ideas (which by definition can't be better than those ideas), then having the same artists judge whether some piece ML art actually is better than anything the traditional artists submitted kind of brings the theoretical argument down to reality.

Sure, they should be treated as separate categories of art, just as we don't include photographs in painting contests, however, that was solved by the artist promptly refusing the prize and disclosing the origin; but until this automatically dismissive attitude persists, triggering this discussion is a good thing - and I'd rather condemn the actions of the organizers, attempting to silently erase this event and pretending it didn't happen. Their jury did decide that at least in some cases an AI generated image can be better art than a "manually" taken photo, and they need to own that decision.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by pessimizer on Saturday April 15, 2023 @06:27PM (#35585234)
There's nothing wrong with just automatically dismissing AI created art in the context of a contest. We don't allow horses to enter marathons, because even though they're fast it's not for them. We don't even allow people to use performance enhancing drugs, which might be a closer comparison.

Should we "condemn" the judges of chess tournaments for not allowing live coaching and chess AIs?

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by PeterisP on Sunday April 16, 2023 @09:05AM (#35589707)
My argument for condemnation was not for disallowing participation but about hiding/denying the fact that they did judge that artwork to be really good.

If the chess community would assert that computers are worse than humans as chess and couldn't ever match human play, and when someone won a chess tournament with forbidden computer assistance the judges of that tournament would instead of saying "yep, the win was due to a forbidden advantage, so we disqualified that participant" rather hide the fact and go "no, that didn't happen, obviously human reasoning won all the games", then we should absolutely condemn them for that hypocrisy.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by eternalban on Saturday April 15, 2023 @01:57PM (#35582906)
> What he did was awesome

His work is quite strong.

https://www.eldagsen.com/pseudomnesia/

"Just as photography replaced painting in the reproduction of reality, AI will replace photography. Don’t be afraid of the future. It will just be more obvious that our mind always created the world that makes it suffer."

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by LegitShady on Saturday April 15, 2023 @03:10PM (#35583617)
ai and photography do not have the same purposes, so its unlikely AI will replace photography. Photography is used to record the world as it is, AI art creates depictions of what its asked for that have no relation to reality.

Rather what people were using photography for in the past may be replaced by AI. Before people went to stock photo sites for cheap images to put on their website or whatever, and tomorrow they'll find out it can be cheaper on midjourney or stable diffusion and it will do that.

But AI won't replace photography for what photography does, rather it will replace photography as the cheapest satisfactory image to use on your website that doesn't need a depiction of reality.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by eternalban on Saturday April 15, 2023 @03:25PM (#35583779)
I read it differently: the artist is saying (per my reading) that we humans have been making 'expressions of reality' first with paint and then with photographs. And now we will be using "AI", and what is good about this is how this latest mechanism of expression is laying bare the actual cause of suffering in human existence: our own minds and imagination.
Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by LegitShady on Saturday April 15, 2023 @05:58PM (#35584982)
photographs didn't destroy paint, because they don't do the same thing. People trying to represent the world as it is use photography (for the most part) and people wanting to express something about the world use paint.

AI is even less than that - people who want a computer to make their artistic decisions for them have a neural net author an image or other work for them. generally the humans having no more artistic input than someone who commissions a piece from an artist by explaining what they want.

A person painting makes a trillion times more artistic decision making than someone 'painting' with a neural net. They aren't the author of the work, and can't enter it into art competitions on their own behalf (unless the rules are stupid), and can't register it for copyright as there is no human authorship.

It is the complete dissolution of human art making - its humans deciding to have a non human thing - that cannot feel emotions or understand the emotions in an image - make 'art' for them. Most because they are incapable of doing it themselves so having something is better than having nothing, some because they do art primarily for money and the neural net works faster than them and they haven't figured out the bit about no copyright yet, or will misrepresent it to illegally get a copyright on an image they didn't author.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by eternalban on Saturday April 15, 2023 @06:40PM (#35585358)
I'm not necessarily in disagreement with the general thrust of your comment.

That last point about feelings and emotions however is not clear cut, imo. Typically the process is itertive, so it's a loop and there is a feeling agent in that loop. Also if you yourself make art, you must have noticed how sometimes even the simplest of tools (say a brush or nib) create ~accidental features of the work that one finds entirely pleasing. This happens a lot to me with ink and brush :) The general input is distincly my line, it is my hand w/o a question, but I have a few works which what feature engaging aspects that were partly accidental, and part of the delight is precisely that: me, the supposed author, is surprised.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by LegitShady on Saturday April 15, 2023 @07:32PM (#35585718)
>Typically the process is itertive, so it's a loop and there is a feeling agent in that loop.

Is someone who continually commissions art until they arrive at a painting they like making artistic decisions in the work? I don't think so.

>you must have noticed how sometimes even the simplest of tools (say a brush or nib) create ~accidental features of the work that one finds entirely pleasing. This happens a lot to me with ink and brush :) The general input is distincly my line, it is my hand w/o a question, but I have a few works which feature engaging aspects that were partly accidental, and part of the delight is precisely that: me, the supposed author, is surprised.

That is unquestionably something you authored, even the mistakes, even the mistakes you liked. But at no point of commissioning artwork are you making artistic decisions.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by eternalban on Saturday April 15, 2023 @10:45PM (#35586785)
The 'commissioning' notion is how you wish to reduce the equation. I on the other hand consider AI as tool a reasonable proposition for the reasons noted. And from a purely practical point of view, getting worked up over this is tilting at windmills. Change is the constant. And there will be undoubtedly 'artist commissioners' that will outshine others, using the same 'artist'..
Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by LegitShady on Sunday April 16, 2023 @01:58PM (#35592537)
The commissioning notion was brought up by the copyright board in their march advisement on the eligibility of neural network produced works under copyright - which are not eligible.

It's an accurate description of whats going on. Commissioning paintings until you get the one you want isn't artistic expression, or artistic decision making, and the human coming up with prompts will be replaced by a machine learning program trained on prompts, as they bring the least value to the process and are the most easily replaced.

> And from a purely practical point of view, getting worked up over this is tilting at windmills.

I'm not worked up at all. I'm explaining whats going on. Is anyone who thinks differently from you getting worked up? Are you getting worked up for imagining emotions I'm not experiencing? In the future just argue ideas instead of imagining emotions across internet mind reading.

>Change is the constant. And there will be undoubtedly 'artist commissioners' that will outshine others, using the same 'artist'.

It will all approach zero value, so it doesn't matter. It's inauthentic, uncopyrightable stuff based on the misappropriation of the work of actual artists. The expert 'commissioners' will also be replaced by machine learning faster than anyone else.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by hgsgm on Saturday April 15, 2023 @03:24PM (#35583763)
> Photography is used to record the world as it is

That's one use of photography. OP is about an art contest, not a photojournalism contest.

But as far as "reproduction of reality", obviously AI productions unreality won't replace photography. It might replace reproduction of reality, though.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by LegitShady on Saturday April 15, 2023 @05:54PM (#35584941)
> OP is about an art contest, not a photojournalism contest.

No, OP is about a photo contest, not an art contest.

>World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by coldcode on Saturday April 15, 2023 @05:20PM (#35584638)
Sorry, this image should not have won any prize. The hands are terrible, there are odd things around the back person's nose, and the highlights in the eyes are wrong, there is a reddish blob on the front person's head, and these are especially obvious when you look at it blown up a little. Whoever judged this contest is pretty clueless about the current quality of AI art generation and was easily fooled. I make digital art, not photography, but these jumped out at me.

The subject matter is probably what "won" the contest, it's pretty well composed.

Re:Artist refuses prize after his AI image wins at top photo... by eternalban on Saturday April 15, 2023 @06:01PM (#35585017)
I think it may have been obvious to most. I didn't really read up on the story ..

https://www.eldagsen.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/preview_...

.. I was impressed with composition(s) as well.