The line between reality and artificial intelligence is increasingly ambiguous. And not even experts in their areas of knowledge are safe from confusion. In recent months, several cases of fraud in artistic competitions related to the use of AI have come to light. Works that seemed extraordinary creations resulting from the talent of their creators were actually developments made by a machine. What had not happened until now was the opposite: that the judges of a photography contest disqualified a real image on the suspicion that it could be a work created from AI.
The scene was captured by Suzi Dougherty on her iPhone. The woman took a spectacular photo of her son next to two mannequins dressed in a little peculiar while she visited a Gucci exhibition. She liked the result so much that she decided to enter a contest organized by Charing Cross Photo, a store in Sydney, Australia.
Initially, four judges positively assessed the quality of the photo, although they later rejected it, suspecting that it had been generated with artificial intelligence.
Just a few days after sending the image, a friend of Dougherty’s showed her an Instagram post that featured her image, but was accompanied by text explaining that it had ultimately been dismissed as AI-generated. The woman denied the information to The Guardian: “I wouldn’t even know how to take a photo with AI. I’m still figuring out how ChatGPT works.”
The contest organizers gave their explanations through their Instagram account, pointing out that the judges initially had doubts and ended up trusting their suspicions.
“We want the images to come from your real life experience and not from cyberspace. There’s no way we can be completely sure that the image submitted was made by AI, but you really can’t ignore the gut instincts of four judges.”
The store owner himself explained to the same British outlet that “the judges looked at the metadata of the image, but could not determine whether the image was generated by an AI or not.” Ultimately, it was resolved with an apology from Charing Cross Photo confirming that the image was real, but it was too late for the contest.
