(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . An AI Image Won a Local Art Contest and People Were Seriously P!ssed Off. (Updated) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-21 The Verde River has a lot of fans here. Locals and tourists alike appreciate the natural beauty and wildlife that are part of one of the last free-flowing rivers in the region. There's a local nonprofit called the Friends of the Verde River. They do important work to raise awareness and appreciation for the river and to promote it's conservation and protection. Since 2001 they've sponsored an annual four day long event, the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival. It's held each spring to coordinate with the spring migration of wild birds. It's a fun, family-friendly event; I took my kids a few times. Local schools take their students on field trips to it. It draws birding enthusiasts from all over this state and beyond. For a little small town event it's grown to be kind of a big deal. In the fall of each year a contest is held for artists to submit their works on a chosen theme for the following year's festival. The winning artwork gets printed on posters, T shirts, all sorts of merchandise, and used in their advertising. It's good exposure for the artist. This year's contest included a $100 cash prize and free booth space at the event for the winner to display and sell their art. I've never submitted an entry myself but I do enjoy seeing the winners. They're usually beautiful works created by well known and highly regarded local artists. This year's theme was "Migration", and the chosen subject was the Common Black Hawk. Screenshot from the festival's Facebook page, detailing the process they use to select a winner. The winning submission. It is an AI image and not copyrighted. It's colorful and eye catching and kinda resembles a bird. A bird with one wing and badly deformed talons. When the first, second, and third place winners were announced last week the backlash was immediate and fierce. The winning submission came from an employee of the Friends of the Verde River. And while I very much hope that had nothing to do with her winning, a number of people commenting think it's a possibility. I can't help but wonder if her being employed by them may have something to do with the organization's tepid response to the outrage being expressed that an AI image was this year's winner. The woman's bio that appears on the organization's website indicates that she's an accomplished person and a valued employee. But she's not an artist. This comment is fairly representative of the reaction so far. The response by the festival organizers however is jaw dropping. Their answer to the above comment prompted me to DM the festival organizers. My message to them. Their rules don't explicitly forbid AI images. But they do state that submissions have to be entirely original work of the artist. This is the work of a computer program that plagiarizes already existing images, requiring nothing beyond a few keystrokes from the user. Entries must be realistic depictions of the wildlife and scenery here; this is just...yikes. The artist is required to own all rights to the image. AI images can't be copyrighted; nobody owns any rights to such images. The committee has made only a very few responses so far. All of them are standing firm on their choice, with complete disregard for their own rules. They acknowledged it when directly asked. But not before. It took no time at all for the memes to start appearing. Same, weird algorithm-on-an-acid-trip bird. Same. I went back the next day to see if perhaps the organizers had changed their minds about the outcome of the art contest. They hadn't. But the comments continued, and as the numbers mounted into the hundreds the tone of them was even more impassioned. (A few, in my opinion, crossed the line. Most didn't.) I don't think I've ever seen such a big reaction to anything, by so many people, in all the seventeen years I've lived in this corner of Arizona. Not even drag shows or women's protest marches elicited such a response. People were really, really, pissed off about this. Update- The day after I wrote this, following hundreds of comments and at least one DM (mine), the organizers decided to do the right thing. For which I thanked them. Hopefully they have learned from this experience. Screenshot from their post a few minutes ago. (Saturday morning, about 11:15 AM) After all the doubling down and brushing off the concerns that were raised, their volte-face came as a welcome surprise. Even more surprising for me was the outpouring of support for real art created by actual artists. I would not have expected it. But it was nice to see. If you'd like to see the new, legitimate contest winner go here m.facebook.com/... Thanks for reading. This is an open thread, all topics are welcome. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/21/2206571/-An-AI-Image-Won-a-Local-Art-Contest-and-People-Were-Seriously-P-ssed-Off-Updated?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/