Two women of different ages stand in front of each other, they belong to different generations, but the whole composition of this image, with its sepia aesthetic, seems to have come from the past. And yet it is an image created in a way that comes from the present and, above all, from the future. The image created with it artificial intelligence.

It’s not hard for AI to fool someone by making something that looks like a human, but as it turns out, it can fool even “experts”. It happened a few days ago at a prize photo contest. Sony World Photography Awards. The above image titled “Pseudomania: Electrician” was the participation of a German artist Boris Eldagsen, who managed to win in the free category of awards.

Historical moment as it is this is the first time an AI derivative has received such an award. Boris Eldagsen but he refused to accept the award. Also, the reason he entered the competition was different. He wanted, on the one hand, to… check the establishment itself, if it is realized that this image is not a photograph in the traditional sense. He succeeded – although even an untrained eye can tell that there is “something wrong” with this image, especially by looking at the hands on it.

And then with this movement-staging, the artist wanted to emphasize how “AI is not photography” and thus open even more the discussion, which, one way or another, has been opened more and more often lately: what is the position of artificial intelligence and how, with its advent, we have to revise the facts so far.

“For starters, I think it’s very important to find a new term. I suggest naming this new field “promtography” – Boris Eldagsen says to “K” about the marriage of photography and AI. As he explains, the term was coined by a Peruvian photographer Christian Vince, with the first connection coming from the English word “hints”, “help” in free translation. “Photography is light, and now it will be devoted to aids. I think it’s a very good term. If there is this separation and you show how the result was obtained, then we can go further,” says Eldagsen.

What the artist wants to emphasize is that with these new terms that will be added to the game, we are no longer talking about photography, but a new form of visual “hybrid” art: “We need to think about where we want to go next , linking photography to its roots”. To avoid misunderstandings, he himself sees the emergence of this new field only positively. “I think artificial intelligence can be a great artistic tool. I like to work with both photography and artificial intelligence, from an artistic point of view, I consider them equal,” he says.

At first glance, it may seem that Boris Eldagsen’s main concern is primarily to convey a message through his art, and then produce a certain aesthetic effect, in fact, of course, he is not particularly interested in this. He cares about giving “an impulse for everyone to see their own reflection.” After all, the main question that the viewer should ask every time they encounter a work of art is “What effect does it have on me?”. That is, to explore the memories, thoughts and feelings that arise with this trigger.

On the one hand, AI photos “cheat” and win contests, on the other hand, not a day goes by that we don’t see a mention of the GPT Chat somewhere, artificial intelligence definitely claims a place in our lives rapidly, sometimes threateningly. . I ask Boris Eldagsen to make a prediction, but it is not easy for him. He sees AI as more or less our mirror, “this is another form of the collective unconscious, trying to find what unites a person with time and culture on a psychological level.”

Friedrich Nietzsche once argued that aesthetics is turning into a new ethics. Eldagsen unexpectedly disagrees with this. However, he believes that Are we approaching a point in history when we will have to redefine what truth means? “Absolutely,” he says without thinking.