When human creativity collides with machine creativity. Miles Astray, a photographer, has just suffered this confrontation during a photo competition.
Recently, an art competition was the scene of an unprecedented situation. Against all expectations, a photograph initially selected among the three best works in the new IA category was unexpectedly disqualified. The reason given? This image had not been generated by artificial intelligence; as we could do thanks to certain specialized models like Stable Diffusion 3 Medium or the powerful Midjourney; but captured through the lens of a human artist.
When humans challenge machines: the Miles Astray case
The 1839 Awards competition, launched last year to celebrate photography as a true art form, has quickly gained notoriety thanks to its panel of judges, drawn from institutions such as the New York Times, Christie’s and Getty Images. The regulations explicitly stipulated to distinguish between works created by artificial intelligence and those produced by photographers using a camera, faithful to traditional techniques.
However, a flaw in the verification process allowed an artist, under the pseudonym Miles Astray, to submit his photograph titled “FLAMINGONE” in the IA category, where it was selected and placed in third place.
This photograph, depicting an apparently decapitated flamingo, also won the People’s Choice Award after Astray cleverly encouraged his social media followers to vote for it. “ I submitted this photo in the AI category to prove that human-made content has not lost its relevance » declared Astray with conviction, emphasizing that “ creativity and emotion are more than just strings of numbers “.
A disqualification not without consequences
The jury’s choice to disqualify Astray provoked strong reactions. Faced with the growing controversy, the organizers of the competition wanted to clarify their position, explaining that Astray’s controversial entry ” did not meet the strict requirements of the AI-generated image category. We understand that this was his provocative aim, but we cannot tolerate him depriving other artists of their legitimate chance to shine in this innovative category “. They hope that this affair will raise awareness among photographers worried about the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence in their discipline.
The emergence of artificial intelligence as a mainstream tool has opened up numerous possibilities for all content producers. Text, image, sound… This new fashionable technology can now provide assistance in many areas, and facilitate work in the most difficult stages of creation. And with an ever-increasing offering, it is important to distinguish which tools provide real added value. So you don’t waste hours trying everything the Google results pages offer!
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Come to think of it, the incursion of a human photograph into an AI competition says much more about our biases than about the superiority of either man or machine in art. From the moment a work is stamped to prove that it was created by AI, our perception of it suddenly changes. Art, unlike many other fields, remains deeply subjective and intimately linked to the register of human emotions. Until proven otherwise, humans still remain masters in this area and any AI, no matter how advanced, only simulates or imitates. A simple digital parrot, fed by algorithms.
Source : Ars Technica
Once I woke up in the boat arriving in Morrowind, I got my finger in the gear. Another of my fingers was also stuck between the pages of books by classic authors: Charles Baudelaire, Émile Zola, Choderlos de Laclos or Victor Hugo to name a few. Twenty years later, a few thousand hours of playing, reading, and here I am! My heart always balances between my passion for tech, video games and my immeasurable love for Letters. Spoiler: I didn't choose and it's not likely to happen anytime soon.
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