AI Art Wins Competition And Sparks Controversy
This may be the first time that an AI generated art piece has won first place at an art competition, and that changes everything.
Jason M. Allen submitted an art piece at the Colorado State Fair Art show titled ‘Theatre D’Opera Spatial’ or Space Opera Theater which was created using MidJourney, a text-to-image AI program. It was one of three pieces he submitted, and it won first place.
The Judges who allowed the work to be submitted weren’t aware that it was AI generated, as Allen just mentioned that he created it using a computer program called MidJourney, which the judges were not familiar with.
But after it won and it became known to be AI generated, it wasn’t recanted by the judges. why? Because there is nothing in the rule book that would disqualify it:
“We haven’t seen anything in our show requirements that prohibits this activity. But it opens up debate as to, do we need to evaluate this for next year as we create the parameters? Does this need to be excluded? And I think this is a conversation that we'll have with the art community after this year's fair,”
- Scott Stoller, the general manager of the state fair
