On Monday, a user named Sincarnate posted a Discord post claiming he had “won first place” at the Colorado State Fair’s fine art competition with an entry made with the Midjourney artificial inteligence (AI) generator.
Jason Allen, the guy behind Sincarnate, accompanied his post with an image of his AI-art printed onto canvas hanging on a wall next to other submissions. A ‘first place’ medal sat proudly next to it.
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Named Théâtre D’opéra Spatial, the striking image depicts period-dressed figures in front of an orchestral and space-like backdrop. To the casual eye, the image is a masterclass of painting and would have had to have been created by an extraordinarily talented artist.
Allen isn’t an insanely gifted artist, however – he created the piece with Midjourney, one of the many AI generators which are becoming increasingly popular, PC Mag reported.
DALL-E, another favourite in the AI generator space, focuses on creating realistic looking images from user’s prompts.
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By GlobalDataMidjourney goes the other way completely, aiming for intricate and imaginative pieces of art by combing a range of styles.
“Expanding the imaginative powers of the human species,” its website reads.
Allen’s win has caused a barrage of outrage on social media as it’s yet another sign that AI-generators are breaking into the mainstream.
AI artists are growing popular and increasingly unpopular
Allen’s isn’t the first person to tap into the power of AI to create art, nor is he the first to be heckled for it.
Last week, the backlash at FN Meka, the world’s first ever AI rapper, forced its contract to be dropped from Capitol Records.
The robot rapper was voiced by a human but the lyrical content, chords and melody were all created through the use of an AI technology that analysed popular songs.
Despite FN Meka’s songs reaching millions of people, hip-hop purists and racial activists called for the label to part ways with their experiment.
Like FN Meka, most of the discourse towards Allen and his winning Midjourney creation has been negative.
“This sucks for the exact same reason we don’t let robots participate in the Olympics,” said one disgruntled Twitter user.
Another wrote: “This is the literal definition of ‘pressed a few buttons to make a digital art piece.’”
Allen claims that his winning piece was made with a secret “special prompt” that he’s used to create hundreds of images.
He believes that the world will soon see AI-created art in its own lane.
Writing on Discord, Allen said “What if we looked at it from the other extreme, what if an artist made a wildly difficult and complicated series of restraints in order to create a piece, say, they made their art while hanging upside-down and being whipped while painting.
“Should this artist’s work be evaluated differently than another artist that created the same piece ‘normally’? I know what will become of this in the end, they are simply going to create an ‘artificial intelligence art’ category I imagine for things like this.”
Verdict recently reported on TikTok’s entry into the AI art space with its new filter “AI Greenscreen”.
The filter allows users to enter a prompt to create a generated AI image, similar to Midjourney and DALL-E. The actual software is no where near as advanced, but it’s another strong indication of the speed AI art is progressing into the mainstream.
GlobalData is the parent company of Verdict and its sister publications.
