A photo competition organized by Sony didn’t quite go as planned when the prize for best photo went to an image that wasn’t actually a photograph at all. The winner, Boris Eldagsen, who has now declined to accept the first prize, says that the image wasn’t taken with a camera but was created using artificial intelligence.
The “photographer” Eldagsen suggests that he wanted to test whether anyone would notice that the image wasn’t taken with a camera. The winning image is supposed to depict two women from the 1940s. Eldagsen himself describes the image as “fake memories of a past that never existed.” He also said this about declining the prize:
AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.
–theguardian.com
So far, Sony hasn’t commented on the incident.
