I know that AI tools are becoming better and better at producing lifelike imagery, but how on Earth this image, which was recently disqualified after winning a Chinese photography competition, even made it past the judges has baffled me.
The image depicting three sanitation workers enjoying a laugh together while taking a break recently won first place at the July edition of the Hohhot Mass Photography Bi-monthly Competition, a multi-series event hosted in the city of Hohhot, North China.
However, just days later, on July 14, amid fierce public backlash citing clear AI usage, the event organizers, the Hohhot Federation of Literary and Art Circles, disqualified the image following an investigation confirming it had, in fact, been generated with AI.
The literary and art circles federation announced the disqualification on WeChat (China's social media platform), in the same post stating that the Northern Frontier Light and Shadow of Qingcheng photography competition would be suspended immediately.
“This incident has exposed issues in our work, such as lax vetting during the review process and imprecise definitions of evaluation standards,” the statement read.
From the identical faces of all three subjects in the offending image, along with their exaggerated laughter – not to mention the strange way in which one of them is throwing water overhead from a kettle – to my eye, this image is clearly AI.
I'm sure it won't be too long until we can no longer distinguish between an AI-generated image and one taken by a photographer using a real camera, but this AI fakery isn't convincing at all, at least not to me.
In the WeChat statement, the competition organizers also vowed to “deeply absorb this lesson” and said that review checkpoints would be “strictly” enforced for all future competitions.
What are your thoughts? Is this image convincing in any way, or were the competition judges simply too naive?
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