AI-Generated Work Receives an Award. The unhappy artists.

The artist of the piece claims, "I won and I didn't break any regulations." The annual art competition at the Colorado State Fair this year awarded medals in all the customary categories, including painting, quilting, and sculpture. But, one participant, A brush or a piece of clay were not used in the creation of Allen's artwork in Pueblo West, Colorado. He created it using Midjourney, an artificial intelligence program that turns words into remarkably lifelike pictures.

Mr. Allen's composition, "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial," one of the first AI-generated works to receive such an honor, triggered a fierce backlash from other artists who accused him of, in essence, cheating.

Mr. Allen answered the phone on Wednesday and defended his position. He stated that his work, which was submitted under the name "Using artificial intelligence, the author developed Jason M. Allen using Midjourney (A.I. ), although he denied deceiving anyone about its production.

I won't apologize for it, he declared. "I won and followed all the regulations,"

Midjourney, an artificial intelligence tool that converts text into hyper-realistic images, was used by Mr. Allen to create his artwork. 

Credit... 

The New York Times' Saeed Rahbaran

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long produced art. But, thanks to innovations from this year like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, even the least skilled painters may now create elaborate, abstract, or lifelike works by simply typing a few words into a text box.

Because of these apps, many traditional artists are naturally worried about their own futures. After all, who would pay for art if they could make it themselves? These applications have also sparked intense debates about the ethics of AI-generated art and opposition from those who think they are simply a technologically advanced form of plagiarism. This year, Mr. Allen, 39, began experimenting with artwork created by AI. He was curious to see how the latest generation of artificial intelligence (AI) picture producers would stack up against the paintings he had ordered from human painters. He has a company that makes tabletop games called Incarnate Games.

This past summer, he was invited to a Discord chat server where users were testing a program called Midjourney, which transforms text into unique graphics through an intricate process called "diffusion." Users send Midjourney a message, and the bot responds with an image shortly after. He said, "I couldn't believe what I was seeing." "I had the impression that some evil force, or otherworldly force, was behind it."

The Colorado State Fair eventually inspired Mr. Allen to enter one of his Midjourney works into the category for "digital art/digitally modified photography." He submitted the canvas print to the judges after having it printed locally.

He explained, "The fair was approaching, and I thought: How fantastic would it be to show people how great this art is?"

A few weeks later, Mr. Allen noticed a blue ribbon hanging next to his entry while strolling the Pueblo fairgrounds. He had triumphed in the division and received a $300 reward. He said, "I couldn't believe it. I had the thought, "This is exactly what I set out to do."

(Mr. Allen refused to provide the precise text prompt he gave Midjourney to generate "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial. Nonetheless, he claimed that the French translation, "Space Opera Theater," offered a hint.)

Following his victory, Mr. Allen shared a picture of his winning entry in the Midjourney Discord channel. It eventually found its way to Twitter, where it provoked a vehement outcry.

One Twitter user stated, "We're watching the death of artistry occur right before our eyes."

Another person said, "This is so nasty." I understand the potential benefits of A.I. art, but how can you claim to be an artist by creating one? Definitely not.

Other artists supported Mr. Allen by arguing that utilizing artificial intelligence (A.I.) to make a piece was same to using Photoshop or other digital image-manipulation tools and that human ingenuity was still needed to come up with the appropriate prompts to produce an award-winning piece.

Any "artistic practice that incorporates digital technology as part of the creative or presenting process," as defined by the category's rules, is allowed. Mr. Allen made a sufficient disclosure of his affiliation with Midjourney when submitting his work, according to Olga Robak of the Colorado Department of Agriculture, which runs the state fair. She claimed that the two category judges were unaware that Midjourney was an A.I. software, but they later acknowledged to her that they would still have given Mr. Allen the top honor even if they had known. Technology-related controversies are nothing new. Several artists resisted the advent of the camera because they believed it to be a dilution of human creativity (Charles Baudelaire, a 19th-century French poet and art critic, referred to photography as "Art's most deadly foe." Similar criticisms of computer-aided design programs and digital editing tools from purists in the 20th century were leveled at them for demanding too little technical expertise from their human colleagues.

Some critics assert that the new generation of A.I. tools are unique not merely because they can effortlessly create stunning works of art. They operate that way. Applications like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney are created by downloading millions of photographs from the internet and teaching computers to identify relationships and patterns in those images. The algorithms are then trained to create new images in the same style. So, artists who publish their works online may unintentionally aid in the development of their algorithmic rivals.

Digital artist RJ Palmer tweeted last month, "What makes this AI unusual is that it's intentionally trained on contemporary working artists." This entity is deliberately anti-artist and wants our employment.

Even those who think AI-generated art is remarkable have concerns about how it was made. It has been said that DALL-E 2, the most talked-about artificial intelligence (AI) image generator now in use, is "bordering on magic in what it can conjure, but raises so many ethical difficulties,It's challenging to keep track of everyone "says writer and techie Andy Baio in a recent essay.

The honoree Mr. Allen said he felt bad for artists who were concerned about losing their jobs to A.I. tools. Nonetheless, he asserted that they should direct their ire at companies rather than individuals who substitute DALL-E 2 or Midjourney for genuine musicians. He said that it shouldn't be interpreted as an attack on technology. "Ethics do not come from technology. People are where it lives.