Winners of the Inaugural Prompted Peculiar International AI Prize Remind Us of the Bizarre Possibilities of AI-Generation Art
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The Prompted Peculiar International AI Prize has just announced its inaugural winners, and the results are a great reminder of just how fascinating—and absurd—AI-generated art can be. Swedish photographer Annika Nordenskiöld's "Twin Sisters in Love" won the grand prize, while Australian artist Hanna Silver's "Robot Intermarriage, Melbourne 1895, 2023" took the audience choice award.
The competition, held by the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, is believed to be one of the first AI-art awards. Nordenskiöld's winning image is a black-and-white photo of two women embracing each other—and an octopus. How did she manage to capture such an unusual sight? With the help of AI.
AI tools like Midjourney, Dall-E and Stable Diffusion make it possible to generate images from text in mesmerizing and sometimes creepy ways. Nordenskiöld used Midjourney to create her winning image, which she says was “conjured from the sum of human experience in our deep collective well, as seen from my dreamboat with its flickering light.”
The competition has sparked a debate over whether machines can truly generate art, and what constitutes art in the first place. In 2022, an AI-generated photo won an art prize at the Colorado State Fair, prompting criticism from artists who argued that the winner had cheated.
The Prompted Peculiar International AI Prize, however, was open to AI-generated works, and it received over 100 submissions from around the world. The jury shortlisted 20 of those works, including "A Friend in Need" by visual artist Morganna Magee. The image shows a kangaroo with a human-like arm standing upright and embracing an alien-looking creature in a rainy, muddy field.
AI art-generation tools have creatives interested and excited, but they have also raised ethical and copyright concerns. As machine-made art improves, graphic designers, illustrators, writers, composers and photographers worry they could find themselves edged out of work.
The winners of the Prompted Peculiar International AI Prize remind us of the bizarre possibilities of AI-generation art. They have also sparked a passionate debate over whether machines can truly create art, and what constitutes art in the first place.
