That $15,000 painting contest prize made me rethink AI art completely

I was scrolling through an art competition website last night and saw they had a $15,000 prize pool for a digital painting contest. Then I looked at the rules and it said AI assisted work was allowed but you had to disclose it. I started checking past winners and found out three of the last five used AI tools like Midjourney for backgrounds. None of them mentioned it in their artist statements. It honestly made me wonder how many real artists are losing out on big prizes because AI entries blend in too well. Has anyone else checked competition fine print recently?

3 comments

3 Comments

alicer535d ago

Actually that 15k prize was for the Wacom Digital Art Awards, not a general competition. The rules clearly state AI assisted work is allowed as long as its disclosed in the submission form, not just the artist statement. I checked their FAQ page last month and it says failure to disclose gets you disqualified, but they don't go back and retroactively punish past winners. So those three winners probably just got away with it because nobody was checking artist statements that closely at the time.

jessem594d ago

Hold up, you sure about that? I read through their rules last year and it said AI stuff had to be in the artist statement too, not just the submission form. If they changed it recently, those old winners could still be in trouble if someone digs up the old terms. Were you looking at the 2023 or 2024 FAQ page?

patricia325d ago

Check their terms again, because the "disclosure in submission form" box is easy to miss and it autofills as "no" in some dropdown menus. I've seen people get flagged for that exact mistake, but only if someone reports them after the fact. The safest bet is to always put it in both places so you're covered if they change their scanning process.