An Australian camera retailer that crowned an AI image the winner of a photo competition has just unveiled the winner of its Man Vs Machine photo contest. Following the slightly-embarrassing mistake, DigiDirect launched a tongue-in-cheek competition inviting people to submit AI images or real images to see which would be triumphant.
After enlisting the help of six Australian photographers to judge the competition, it was agreed the age of man is not over (just yet) as Keith Costelo (@pixelmonki) was crowned the winner. His submission, however, was a nod to AI as it featured a cyberpunk-looking model hooked up to wires, lit with pink, blue and UV lights.
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In total, 415 images were entered into the competition. On winning, Costello said, "While technology continues to advance and push the boundaries of what is possible in photography, there is still something truly special and irreplaceable about the human eye and the creative choices we make."
In the last few months, AI text-to-image generators have become incredibly advanced and now able to produce hyper-realistic images. Several 'photographers' / digital artists have also faced backlash for sharing AI-generated portraits without being completely transparent, and French magazine Réponses Foto even used an AI photo as its cover image to demonstrate how believable AI is getting.
AI isn’t all bad, though. A Dutch tech company has found a way that it can use AI cameras to help catch poachers, and agricultural company John Deere has developed an AI tractor that’s able to identify weeds from crops to target and spray herbicides.
Thankfully a human won DigiDirect’s competition, otherwise the photography community might have had even more AI-related qualms.
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