The tip of the iceberg? Ignorance of AI is leading to some pretty negative consequences.
The image above is one of a series from Australian photographer Suzi Dougherty's entry into a Sydney immersive exhibit and contest entitled Gucci Garden Archetypes that explored the fashion giant's advertising campaigns. Featuring her 18-year-old son dressed in a red Lacoste sweater and two mannequins, one male and one female, the photo was disqualified from the competition under suspicion that it was generated by AI (artificial intelligence).
Iain Anderson, the owner of Charing Cross Photo, the print shop that ran the competition, discussed his rationale for disqualifying the entry with Artnet News.
“The mannequins. I just thought the faces were just too … the overall feel of it just felt fake. It was just a well-taken photograph. Her son is a good-looking guy kind of looked mannequin-ish. Too perfect to be true,” Anderson said.
Now, I realize that AI technology is a new phenomenon and is changing and evolving at breakneck speed. It can be put to work in so many useful ways ala Adobe's Sensei and Firefly technology, just to stick with the field of photography.
It also has the potential to do great harm to a great many people through applications like the creation and dissemination of political deep fakes. The general elections are not too far off in the future here in the U.S., so stay tuned to see how it all plays out.
To advocate that AI should be relegated to the dustbin now would be fruitless--and shortsighted. Kind of like screaming into a windstorm, too. You'll just become hoarse and nobody listens anyway.
My biggest gripe, then, is that there are already unwitting victims of AI because of fear and misunderstanding on the part of others. This isn't the first case I’ve heard of where a photographer was shown the door at a competition due to the ill-informed knee-jerk reaction of a judge. Add to that the terror in the photographic community that AI will render photographers obsolete and see them replaced entirely in the near future.
Everything old is new again. Most of us have heard similar things in the past on the heels of new technology. We'll adapt and get through this one, too.
SCHRADER, Adam. 17 July 2023. “An Australian Photographer Was Disqualified From a Photo Contest After Her Submission Was Mistakenly Deemed A.I.-Generated .” Artnet News [online]. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/australian-photographer-disqualified-ai-generated-2337906Links to an external site. [accessed 23 July 2023]