People who have doubted technology's ability to take over in all sorts of areas often go back to the phrase, "can a computer create art?"

Well, it's 2023, and if you consider photography an art, then the answer is certainly "yes."

A German photographer wanting to make a point about artificial intelligence and art submitted a photo into a photography contest that was not actually a photograph but a work of AI.

And he won.

Here's the piece:

Boris Eldagsen entered the AI portrait into The Sony World Photographers Awards, an international photo competition, and the artwork he submitted was so stunning it took home the top prize in the "Creative" category.

Here is the description of the winner:

The Electricia, a haunting black-and-white portrait of two women from different generations, reminiscent of the visual language of 1940s family portraits.

These experts in photography couldn't even tell that it was a fake. It was so good it ended up winning a category out of who knows how many photos in a prestigious international contest.

Elgadsen, however, revealed that it was an AI-generated image and didn't accept the award.

Here's what he had to say (translated from German):

I applied as a cheeky monkey, to find out, if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not. We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not. Is the umbrella of photography large enough to invite AI images to enter – or would this be a mistake? With my refusal of the award I hope to speed up this debate.

Sony has since removed the photo from their site, once they figured out they were duped.

It's a brave new world out there.

Get ready for it.