Jason Allen submitted “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” to the Colorado State Fair’s fine art competition, which began on August 26. On Monday he was declared the first-place winner of the competition’s “Digital Arts/Digitally-Manipulated Photography” category—despite the fact that he himself didn’t create the piece. Instead, an AI program called Midjourney generated the artwork based on a text prompt. Allen then took the generated image and touched it up in Photoshop before upscaling with Gigapixel.
The piece is admittedly beautiful. The scene depicted is both timeless and a bit futuristic, between the subjects’ flowing gowns and a massive window—or is it a portal?—dousing the room with sunlight. But the beauty of “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” isn’t the point. If no artistic skill was required to create the piece, can it truly be considered a work of art? If so, can it reasonably be considered Allen’s art, not Midjourney’s? Should it be compared with the art painstakingly created by humans with long histories of trial and error, as it was at the Colorado State Fair?
“AI art wouldn’t exist without someone telling it what to make. So the person telling it what to make is the artist of the work.”
This is the most common argument I’ve seen trying to validate AI “artists”.
When I tell a waiter at a restaurant what I want to eat, am I the chef?
— 🏳️🌈Chris Shehan🔪 (@ChrisShehanArt) August 31, 2022
Unsurprisingly, these questions have sparked a heated debate online. Some artists swear Allen’s blue ribbon signifies impending doom for those who draw, paint, print, or otherwise produce their own work, instead of having an algorithm do it for them. “There’s no effort put into typing some words into AI and it feels like it discredits artists who actually put work into their art,” one Twitter user put it simply.
Allen, of course, sees it differently. “How interesting is it to see how all these people on Twitter who are against AI generated art are the first ones to throw the human under the bus by discrediting the human element! Does this seem hypocritical to you guys?” he posted to the Midjourney Discord server following his win. “I’m not stopping now. This win has only emboldened my mission.”
If AI-generated images are going to continue to be passed off as art—and it appears they will be—there’s nothing to say artists and AI fanatics wouldn’t be able to reach a compromise. Allen, for one, could have been clearer about his use of AI to create “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial.” Though he allegedly labeled the piece “Jason Allen via Midjourney” when he submitted it to the fair’s competition, this was not noted on the placard accompanying the piece when it was on display. Additionally, most people don’t know what Midjourney is; the algorithm could have easily been mistaken for a Photoshop competitor. Future art competitions might also benefit from having a category solely for AI-generated art.
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