This artwork made using AI won a contest. Opinions on it are divided

(Image credit: @GenelJumalon/Twitter)

An artwork created with the help of artificial intelligence has won a contest in the United States, sparking a debate about the nature of art. The man who submitted the piece has been accused of cheating by some social media users.

The contestant, Jason Allen, was announced as the winner in the digital arts/digitally-manipulated category at the Colorado State Fair earlier this week.

On social media platform Discord, he shared that he had created the art piece using Midjourney -- an AI programme that generates images from text prompts.

TL;DR — Someone entered an art competition with an AI-generated piece and won the first prize.

Yeah that's pretty fucking shitty. pic.twitter.com/vjn1IdJcsL

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— Genel Jumalon Nan Desu Kan (@GenelJumalon) August 30, 2022

His winning image (the first in the tweet), was described by CNN as "a surreal cross between a Renaissance and steampunk painting".

Allen said he had created hundreds of images using Midjourney, and after weeks of fine-tuning, submitted three entries for the competition.

“I have been exploring a special prompt that I will be publishing at a later date, I have created 100s of images using it, and after many weeks of fine tuning and curating my gens, I chose my top 3 and had them printed on canvas after unshackling with Gigapixel AI,” he wrote.

Allen told CNN it took him over 80 hours to get the works he entered in the contest.

One of the judges of the competition also acknowledged there was a"lot involved in this piece".

"I think the AI technology may give more opportunities to people who may not find themselves artists in the conventional way," Cal Duran told CNN.

Many on social media disagreed with the view.

One user accused Allen of "grievously misusing" a tool to cheat in an art competition.

"This is the exact same reason we don't let robots participate in the Olympics," another person wrote.

A third user said "the death of artistry is unfolding before our eyes".

"If creative jobs aren’t safe from machines, then even high-skilled jobs are in danger of becoming obsolete," they wrote. "What will we have then?"

Some on Twitter didn't see anything wrong with the AI-generated piece.

"Not sure how this is that different from photography," one Twitter user wrote. "Person spent weeks refining the input, and then combed through hundreds of options to arrive at the “best” ones. That requires subjective art experience. It’s not like the AI did it on its own."

Another comment said AI was an "incredible tool" for artists. "I'm just saying people should try it," they said.

AI has increasingly shown abilities to do creative tasks like writing.