An AI-generated image won top prize at Sony World Photography Awards

(Image: Boris Eldagsen)

An AI-generated image ended up winning the top honours in the creative open category of Sony’s World Photography Awards 2023.

Boris Eldagsen, the photographer, who submitted the photo titled ‘PSEUDOMNESIA | The Electrician’ has refused to accept the prize and said that he, “applied as a cheeky monkey, to find out, if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not”.

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Eldagsen urged the photo world at large to have an open discussion on what can be considered photography and what cannot.

He said that “with my refusal of the award I hope to speed up this debate.”

A spokesperson for the World Photography Organization told The Guardian, that the “creative category of the open competition welcomes various experimental approaches to image making from cyanotypes and rayographs to cutting-edge digital practices.”

They confirmed that Eldagsen had disclosed the photo was “co-created” using AI and welcomed his wish for dialogue on the issue but following his, “subsequent statement noting his deliberate attempts at misleading us”, they felt they could no longer attempt, “to engage in a meaningful and constructive dialogue with him”.

Eldagsen rubbished the Organisation’s statement with a blog post, saying, “you now want to give the impression that you wanted a dialogue but I don’t is nonsense.”

The winner said that the organization only offered him a Q&A blog after he, “suggested for the third time that a public discussion is necessary”.

He said that he sent many emails which went unanswered and press enquiries on his image were, “dismissed with a generic quote.”

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He also blamed the organization for only reacting to the photo after the “international photo community took up the issue on social media and discussed it so intensively that the Times and BBC inquired”.

“They had so many options to use this for good. They used none of them. Instead, they refused to answer my questions, the questions of the press, the questions of concerned photographers,” wrote Eldagsen.