A German artist has refused a prestigious world photo award because the image he made was created through artificial intelligence.
Boris Eldagsen entered the Sony World Photography Awards held last week with his piece entitled Pseudomnesia: The Electrician, which won the creative open category.
The image depicted two women standing close together, one behind the other, in black and white.
Eldagsen revealed on social media his image was generated with artificial intelligence and had entered the competition as a "cheeky monkey" to test whether competitions are prepared for AI images to enter.
"They are not," he said.
Eldagsen thanked the judges for "selecting my image and making this a historic moment" but added he would "not accept the award."
"Something about this doesn't feel right, does it? AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this," Eldagsen said.
"They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award."
Shortly after, the photo was stripped from the competition website.
Eldagsen is calling for an open discussion on whether AI should be considered photography.
A spokesperson got the World Photography Organisation told the BBC that during their discussions with the artist before he was crowned the winner he had confirmed the piece was made with AI.
"The creative category of the open competition welcomes various experimental approaches to image making from cyanotypes and rayographs to cutting-edge digital practices," they said.
"As such, following our correspondence with Boris and the warranties he provided, we felt that his entry fulfilled the criteria for this category, and we were supportive of his participation."
However, they said Eldagsen was removed from the competition as per his wishes.
The spokesperson said they lookforwarding into engaging in more in-depth conversations on the topic of AI and have invited Eldagsen to speak on this topic for their website.
