Berlin-based photographer Boris Eldagsen turned down the Sony World Photography Awards 2023 and called his actions "cheeky" on his website immediately after admitting that the image that won first place in the Creative Open competition category was generated by artificial intelligence. Two women are "filmed" in the frame called "Electrician", and the work itself is part of the Pseudomnesia: Fake Memories series - "fake paintings from the past that never was."

The photographer had several goals at the competition. The first is to check how ready the community is for the emergence of AI images.

"I cheekily applied to see if these contests were ready for AI-powered images. Not ready," Eldagsen wrote.

The second reason is the call to figure out what exactly can be considered a photograph, and to make sure that the images generated by artificial intelligence and the frames taken by people do not compete with each other, because they are "different entities".

"We, the world of photography, need an open discussion. Discussions about what we are ready to consider photography and what is not. Is the category of "photography" broad enough to include images made by artificial intelligence — or would it be a mistake?" — said the photographer.

Eldagsen said that he considers the incident a "historic moment" because for the first time in an international photo competition, the prize was given to a frame generated by artificial intelligence.

"How many of you suspected that this photo was AI-generated? Something is wrong here, right?" the photographer concluded.

However, the World Organization of Photography reacted to Eldagsen's actions without much enthusiasm. The representative of the SAI stated that after the photographer had tried to deliberately mislead the competition management and revoked the guarantees of the authenticity of the image that he had provided, despite his motives, it was impossible to have a meaningful and constructive dialogue with him, as well as further joint activities.

At the same time, the organization noted that they recognize the importance of the issues raised and welcome their further discussion, reports The Guardian.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being integrated into the life of modern society and art. For example, at the Non / fiction literary fair, the book "Artificial Intelligence Answers Questions" written by AI was presented, and the STS TV channel launched the production of the series "The Sidorovs" based on a script written by a neural network.

Earlier, scientists from NUST MISIS also developed an experimental model of the neural network that composed the play. This AI was trained on the works of Russian classics, analyzing dozens of works and thousands of dialogues.

"We live in a time when it is important to look for new and even unexpected opportunities for the application of artificial intelligence. In the future, neural networks can make a huge contribution to the development of theatrical art, and today we are taking a significant step towards this," said Ivan Pleshakov, the team's developer and NUST MISIS student, to Machine Learning.

Nevertheless, scientists who support the development of artificial intelligence technologies are convinced that the mass displacement of a person by a machine from any professions is unlikely, and the neural networks themselves should push people to develop.

However, not everyone is so optimistic. Entrepreneur, head of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk believes that AI can ultimately destroy humanity - if it "learns" to control itself, and is not completely subordinate to people.

"It's possible. Everything goes to that, absolutely," Musk said in an interview with Fox News. He stated the need to create an agency whose duties will include oversight of this area.

Shortly before that, the ChaosGPT chatbot told exactly how humanity can be destroyed. In response to the user's task, the AI "investigated nuclear weapons" by recruiting other AI bots.