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Tuesday, Feb 18, 2025
Mugglehead Investment Magazine
Alternative investment news based in Vancouver, B.C.

AI and Autonomy

Birdwatcher wins AI photo contest with unaltered flamingo snap, gets disqualified

He did it to prove that nature is still superior to visual content created by a machine

Birdwatcher wins AI photo contest with unaltered flamingo snap, later disqualified
Photo credit: Miles Astray

A German photographer recently embarked on a mission to prove that nature is more aesthetically valuable than anything a machine can create, and he succeeded.

Miles Astray submitted a photo of a flamingo he took in Aruba to a photography contest and took one of the top prizes. His snap titled “F L A M I N G O N E” won third place in the “AI-generated category” at the Color Photography Contest hosted by 1839 Awards. It also won a “People’s Vote” prize at the prestigious competition.

However, once Astray informed the judges that the photo was authentic he was disqualified. They were not upset and actually appreciative of his meaningful act.

Despite its name, the contest host organization was established in 2022. It commemorates Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre’s pioneering invention of the world’s first practical photographic process in the 19th century.

Astray says he made his photo submission to “prove that human-made content has not lost its relevance, that Mother Nature and her human interpreters can still beat the machine, and that creativity and emotion are more than just a string of digits.”

Winners from the competition were selected by judges from The New York Times, Getty Images, Christie’s auction house, Koninklijke Philips NV (NYSE: PHG) and other media influences. The snap’s title refers to the bird’s buried head.

“I was hoping that these industry professionals and also the audience would find that this jab at AI and its ethical implications outweighs the ethical implications of deceiving the viewer,” Astray said in a blog post, “which, of course, is ironic because that is what AI does.”

Read more: Verses announces Genius public beta preview and webinar June 20

Read more: Verses AI onboards chief product officer in push for AI product Genius

Nature defeats AI images; AI learns from nature

This is particularly true for the innovative new company Verses AI Inc. (CBOE: VERS) (OTCQB: VRSSF).

Verses has created what it describes as the world’s first natural computing system: an AI model called Genius. It learns by examining biological processes in nature rather than ordinary datasets that other machine learning programs rely on.

In a recent interview with the Eagle Investing Network, Verses was described as a company taking the “artificial” OUT of artificial intelligence.

“Our main focus is not to try to artificially engineer intelligence in a computer but rather to take the best of what we understand about biology, physics and neuroscience and apply that to computing” chief executive Gabriel René described.

 

Verses AI is a sponsor of Mugglehead news coverage 

 

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