In the ongoing man-versus-machine battle involving artificial intelligence, humans have scored a goal, courtesy photographer Miles Astray.

The 38-year-old chose to enter a real photograph of a flamingo in the “AI category” at the 1839 Awards’ Color Photography Contest, which is judged by industry leaders from Christie’s, Getty Images, The New York Times and other organisations. His work, titled
“F L A M I N G O N E”, managed to beat entries moulded by algorithms, winning him third place (the photograph also won the People’s Vote award).

“I wanted to show that real, human-made content continues to be relevant, that Mother Nature and her human interpreters still outdo the machine, and that creativity and emotion are more than just a string of digits,” globe-trotting Astray, who considers himself a creative nomad and is currently based in La Paz, Bolivia, told The Telegraph.

Astray, who has travelled to Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, India, Laos and South Africa with his camera, came clean about the lack of AI involvement in the photograph and gave up the award. Lily Fierman, director of Creative Resource Collective, which manages the contest, told Astray that she appreciated the “powerful message”.

He shot “Flamingone” in Aruba two years ago. He got up at 5am to visit a beach where flamingos roam aimlessly. He wanted some pictures without people in the frames and though he did “get a great shot with a selfie-human that also won an award recently”, “Flamingone” is in the news for beating entries conjured by text prompts. The flamingo appears headless as it bends its neck to scratch itself.

“While AI is the polar opposite of what I do as an artist — depict reality candidly — I think there is a creative element to producing AI-generated content. Whether it is art or not is a subjective matter we all have to answer for ourselves. I am comfortable with AI as long as it doesn’t intentionally or unintentionally deceive viewers, contribute to the spreading of misinformation, and uproot livelihoods,” Astray told this newspaper.

Astray said: “Depending on how creatives (and others) adapt to the new normal, and what institutional guardrails we put in place, it can boost creatives by taking over menial tasks and freeing up time for passion projects. Or it can cost people a paycheck, a job, a livelihood.”

“In the hands of the right people, it could advance humanity, for example by calculating climate change models. Or it could wreak havoc as a weapon of mass misinformation in the hands of the wrong people. One thing is for certain: we need to act now, and get ahead of AI’s lightspeed development, or we’ll have a hard time playing catch up,” the photographer added.

Astray said that he advocates the tagging of AI imagery and that the “onus is on the private sector and on governments”. He said: “What might become even more important though is each person’s individual responsibility to think critically and question the apparently obvious. Above all, we’ll have to educate young people to navigate this new digital landscape.”