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> For an art competition, the constraints might be things like "don't use AI to generate the image" [...]

This is a good point. But...

1) Was that actually explicitly stated as a constraint in this specific art competition? If not, then no (explicit) rules were broken, I guess.

2) Unlike rules such as "don't use steroids" (which can be enforced through testing), it might be more complicated to effectively enforce rules such as "don't use AI to generate the image": even if you assume some perfect "watermarking" process (that would mark an image as "AI-generated" vs. "human-generated"), nothing prevents a person from indirectly using AI in the generation of digital art (e.g., prompt -> generate image using AI -> paint over image using pbrush.exe, deleting all watermarks in the process).

My point: though you make a fair point, rules that cannot be effectively enforced can be seen as somewhat unfair (since they only affect honest people).

> Was that actually explicitly stated as a constraint in this specific art competition? If not, then no (explicit) rules were broken, I guess

I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. So yes, most likely.

There's unlikely to be a rule specifically against AI in the same way there's unlikely to be a rule specifically against getting help from space aliens. Both probably seemed as likely to be an issue up until a few years ago (especially to people who don't follow tech developments).

> 2. Unlike rules such as "don't use steroids" (which can be enforced through testing), it might be more complicated to effectively enforce rules such as "don't use AI to generate the image

My understanding is that testing for all banned substances is actually extremely hard.

In any case, the point is moot - this artist did use AI and is not trying to claim otherwise.

If you can get away with breaking any rule, whether it's steroids, AI, or invisible strings, then that's a different discussion.

> I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar.

What exactly counts as "own work" in the age of digital tools and AI? This was explicitly the digital works category, and even Photoshop makes use of AI.

> I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. So yes, most likely.

This seems too vague/ill-defined. In what way is the entry "not his own work"? Using tool X or Y in the generation of digital artwork doesn't make the work belong to the tool.

By this logic, using stuff like Photoshop's context-aware fill (which, in some sense, generates/hallucinates novel image data without human intervention) would also make the resulting work "AI-tainted" and "not human-generated", right?

> My understanding is that testing for all banned substances is actually extremely hard.

...but still quite doable (so there's always the risk of getting caught).

How exactly do you propose that digital art gets tested for "use of AI in its production"? Sounds like a situation that is ripe for selective enforcement (i.e., the only people that are going to get caught are the people that are honest/dumb enough to get caught).

> In any case, the point is moot - this artist did use AI and is not trying to claim otherwise.

It may be moot in this particular case, but it's not moot in the general sense, since most people are not necessarily honest (unlike this person).

Either way, unless the competition had an explicit rule against the use of AI tools (or whatever you want to call them), I still don't see how this person did anything wrong: as far as I can tell, the person submitted their own work (note: there is no legal mechanism under which a machine can claim authorship over something).

>This seems too vague/ill-defined. In what way is the entry "not his own work"? Using tool X or Y in the generation of digital artwork doesn't make the work belong to the tool

It's up to the judges to decide, no doubt. Every possible rule (including laws in a legal system) will at some point encounter edge cases. That's why we have judges.

In this case, I expect most judges will feel that having an AI generate art is not the same as having a human draw art using a drawing program, which seems reasonable.

Yes. And judges (in the context of the legal system) have generally decided that non-human animals and machines are not entitled to authorship (and copyright) rights, and I don't see "stable diffusion" changing this. So, even if you use such tools... as far as the law (in its current form) is concerned, you are still the author of the work.

In the context of an art competition, I can see how it would be useful to restrict the use of such tools (as you state), but then it should be done explicitly, rather than through generic/vague "you should make the work yourself" clauses (and, again, it might not be possible to effectively enforce such rules).

> For a weightlifting competition, those constraints are things like "don't use steroids" and "don't use an invisible string to assist you in lifting the weights".

This is a good point. The constraints seem important, yet at the same time no one seems to be following them.

Whether it’s elite CrossFit, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or Olympic weightlifting, people ARE taking gear to stay competitive. I could see digital art becoming a similar arms race.

Fair, but those arguments only come up when you've lost the ability to compete at the main activity (which, since the AI won, seems to be the case).

You could probably retroactively disqualify this person from the contest, but it has a lot of implications for the art world outside of state fair competitions.