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Outsmarting AI: The Photographer Who Fooled the Machines

Photographer Miles Astray disqualified from AI image contest after winning with real photo.

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AI-generated content in art

TL;DR

  • Photographer Miles Astray disqualified from AI image contest after winning with a real photo
  • Astray aimed to show that nature can beat AI-generated imagery
  • AI-generated content in artsparks debate among creatives

The Unlikely Winner of an AI Image Contest

A photographer has been disqualified from a picture competition after his real photograph won in the AI image category. AI-generated content in art is a hot topic of debate. Miles Astray entered a surreal photo of a flamingo into the AI category of the 1839 Color Photography Awards. The judges not only placed it third but it also won the People’s Vote Award.

Astray’s Intention: Nature vs. Machine

Astray had a clear intention behind his unconventional submission. He tells PetaPixel, “I wanted to show that nature can still beat the machine and that there is still merit in real work from real creatives.” He was inspired to turn the tables after seeing AI-generated imagery beat actual photos in competitions.

Judges Fooled by Real Photograph

The color photography contest is judged by professionals from The New York Times, Getty Images, Phaidon Press, Christie’s, and Maddox Gallery, among others. None could apparently tell that Astray’s photo was real. The AI category is the only one in the contest that is not camera-based.

Disqualification for a Powerful Message

In an email to PetaPixel, the competition’s organizers said that while they appreciate Astray’s “powerful message”, his entry has been disqualified in consideration for the other artists. The spokesperson said, “Each category has distinct criteria that entrants’ images must meet. His submission did not meet the requirements for the AI-generated image category.”

AI Images Winning Photography Contests

The rapid advancement of text-to-image models a couple of years ago led to impressive AI images that have won photography contests. The Sony World Photography Awards gave Boris Eldagsen a prize in the Creative category of the 2023 Open competition, sparking controversy.

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A Rare Win for Photography

Astray’s stunt is a rare win for photography against AI-generated imagery.

“AI-generated content is such a big topic right now, especially among creatives. There is an important public debate about the benefits and pitfalls of this game-changing technology that I wanted to contribute to.” Miles Astray

Mother Nature Triumphs

Astray is glad that his experiment confirmed his hypothesis: “there is nothing more fantastic and creative than Mother Nature herself.” His actions have brought awareness to the ongoing debate about AI-generated content and its impact on the creative industry.

The Debate Among Creatives

The rise of AI-generated content has sparked a debate among creatives about its benefits and pitfalls. While some see it as a tool to enhance their work, others worry about its impact on originality and job opportunities. The controversy surrounding Astray’s disqualification highlights these concerns.

AI vs. Human Creativity

The debate over AI-generated content raises questions about the nature of creativity. Can a machine be truly creative, or does creativity require human intuition and experience? Astray’s stunt suggests that there is still a place for human creativity in the age of AI.

The Future of AI in Art

The use of AI in art is likely to continue to grow, but the debate over its impact on creativity and the industry is far from settled. As AI technology advances, it will be important for creatives to engage with the issue and consider how it can be used to enhance their work without replacing human creativity.

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  • To learn more about the debate on AI versus original art tap here.

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Mastering the Art of AI Prompts for Everyday Requests

Mastering the art of AI prompts can transform general responses into personalised, useful answers. Learn how to refine prompts step-by-step for tailored AI outputs.

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AI Prompts

TL/DR:

  • Crafting effective AI prompts can transform general responses into personalised, useful answers.
  • By refining prompts step-by-step, users can tailor AI outputs to meet specific dietary, budget, and seasonal requirements.
  • Including preferences, budget constraints, nutritional focus, recipe suggestions, and seasonal ingredients enhances the relevance and practicality of AI-generated grocery lists.

Asking AI the ‘right’ question can yield powerful, personalised answers. But crafting an effective prompt is a skill—one that can transform a general response into something tailored and useful for your unique needs.

In this guide, we’ll walk through building a prompt step-by-step, using a single everyday task—planning a weekly grocery list—and show you how to go from a simple request to a highly specific list that meets dietary, budget, and even seasonal requirements.

Ready to get the most out of your prompts? Let’s dive in.

Starting Simple

Sometimes, you just want a basic grocery list. Here’s how to start with a simple prompt.

Prompt Example: “Create a grocery list for a family of four with basic ingredients for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

What It Does: This basic prompt gives you a standard list. You’ll likely get staple items like eggs, bread, milk, and vegetables for three meals a day, but without much customisation.

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Adding Preferences

To make the list more relevant, try including your family’s dietary preferences. Here’s an example with a vegetarian twist.

Prompt Example: “Create a grocery list for a family of four, focusing on vegetarian options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

What It Does: By specifying “vegetarian,” the AI will provide plant-based ingredients, such as beans, lentils, and vegetables, catering to a meat-free diet. This makes the list more aligned with specific lifestyle choices.

Incorporating a Budget

Budget constraints? Let’s factor that in to make the list realistic and wallet-friendly.

Prompt Example: “Create a grocery list for a family of four, with vegetarian options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, keeping it under $100.”

What It Does: With a budget cap, the AI can adjust portion sizes or prioritise cost-effective ingredients, such as bulk grains or frozen vegetables, to stay within the set limit. This way, you’re not overspending while keeping meals covered for the week.

Adding a Nutritional Focus

To make your grocery list even more valuable, you can add specific nutritional goals, such as high-protein options.

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Prompt Example: “Create a grocery list for a family of four, vegetarian meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, under $100, prioritising high-protein foods and fresh produce.”

What It Does: Adding a nutritional focus means the AI will include high-protein items, like tofu, quinoa, and chickpeas, while balancing fresh fruits and vegetables. It ensures your family gets the protein they need on a budget.

Including Recipe Suggestions

What if you’d like a little cooking guidance along with the list? Adding recipes can make meal prep a breeze.

Prompt Example: “Create a grocery list for a family of four, with vegetarian meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, under $100, focusing on high-protein foods and fresh produce. Include a simple recipe idea for each meal.”

What It Does: With this prompt, the AI can suggest recipes like “Chickpea Salad Wrap” for lunch and “Quinoa Stir-Fry” for dinner. Each meal includes ingredients that are already on the list, so everything is efficiently planned and ready to go.

Enhancing with Seasonal Ingredients

Want your groceries to be sustainable and fresh? Adding a seasonal focus can make all the difference.

Prompt Example: “Create a grocery list for a family of four, vegetarian meals under $100, high-protein with fresh, seasonal produce for November. Include one recipe idea per meal.”

What It Does: This final layer makes the list practical and eco-friendly, focusing on produce like pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and greens that are in season in November. Seasonality ensures freshness, better prices, and sometimes even a tastier meal!

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Building Effective Prompts for Everyday Life

As you can see, with each step, your prompt becomes more refined and powerful. By layering in preferences, budget, nutrition, recipe ideas, and seasonality, you create a prompt that meets your needs precisely. Try experimenting with your own prompts and discover how a well-crafted question can unlock the full potential of AI for your everyday life. Whether you’re meal-planning, organising, or budgeting, building your prompts thoughtfully makes the AI experience more rewarding and relevant.

Happy prompt-crafting!

Join the conversation

What are your favourite AI prompts for everyday tasks? Share your tips and tricks in the comments below! And don’t forget to subscribe for updates on AI and AGI developments here. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how AI is transforming your daily life!

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Adrian’s Arena: AI and the Global Shift – What Trump’s 2024 Victory Means for AI in Asia

With Trump’s 2024 re-election, Asian nations might push for self-reliant AI ecosystems, regional partnerships, and stronger privacy standards.

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donald trump happy

TL;DR

  • Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential win could reshape AI development in Asia by prompting self-reliant AI ecosystems, more regional partnerships, and increased privacy standards.
  • Asian nations may accelerate AI innovation and talent development to reduce reliance on U.S. tech, particularly as they anticipate shifts due to this result.
  • Asian companies are positioned to thrive, offering privacy-compliant, localised AI insights that align with Asia’s unique market dynamics during this new Trump era.

What now for AI?

The re-election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency is sure to have profound global impacts, particularly in areas like artificial intelligence (AI). In Asia, where AI adoption is already soaring, Trump’s approach to foreign policy, technology, and economic partnerships may drive significant shifts in both public and private AI ventures. This focus includes Donald Trump’s 2024 election win and subsequent implications on AI in various sectors.

This article explores how the changing political landscape could reshape AI in Asia and how businesses are poised to navigate and leverage these shifts.

Donald Trump 2024 election AI

AI Regulation and Innovation: A Push for Autonomy

Trump’s leadership may spur a greater focus on AI autonomy in Asia, encouraging countries to develop homegrown AI solutions across various industries. For example, healthcare data analytics in Singapore, fintech solutions in India, and consumer insights platforms in Japan could see accelerated development as these nations prioritise self-reliance.

Several companies in Asia are well-positioned to contribute, offering privacy-compliant AI insights that help brands tailor messaging without relying on U.S.-based tech giants.

Trade Policies and Tech Partnerships: Redrawing Lines

With Trump’s trade policies likely to maintain a “protectionist” edge, tech partnerships across the Pacific may become more complex, leading Asia’s leading economies to bolster regional AI collaborations. This may foster tighter partnerships within Asia, where companies can provide high-impact AI solutions tailored to local consumer behaviours and trends.

Research Funding and Education: A New Wave of Asian Talent

The expected restrictions on U.S. visas for Asian students and researchers could spark a wave of investment in AI education and talent retention across Asia. AI companeis can support this talent surge by offering real-world, Asia-specific AI applications, from data analytics to customer insights and digital advertising.

Practical programs in Asia, especially in Singapore —offer hands-on AI training—equip professionals with critical skills for driving regional innovation, positioning Asia as a powerhouse for AI expertise.

AI-Powered Defense and Cybersecurity: Strengthening Regional Security

As Asian nations fortify their defences in response to Trump’s renewed focus on military alliances, AI-driven cybersecurity solutions are expected to see considerable growth. AI companies in Asia are poised to address emerging threats with precision and speed.

For instance, Asian technology could support national cybersecurity initiatives by identifying threat patterns in real-time across public data sources, providing governments and enterprises with actionable insights for safeguarding critical infrastructure.

Privacy and Data Ownership: Asia’s Standards vs. the U.S. Approach

Asia’s data governance standards are set to diverge further from those in the U.S., especially with Trump’s preference for lighter tech regulation. This shift aligns with ad tech’s approach to delivering privacy-compliant audience insights, offering Asia-based companies a way to engage their customers effectively without compromising data security.

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Impact on the AI Talent Pipeline: Challenges and Opportunities

Trump’s immigration policies could impact the AI talent pipeline to the U.S., pushing many skilled AI professionals to remain in Asia. Companies can leverage this shift by tapping into local AI talent for projects that require regional expertise, particularly in the Donald Trump 2024 election AI context.

By prioritising local talent, companies can ensure that solutions align with Asia’s unique market demands, from local consumer insights to culturally resonant AI-driven advertising.

As a result, Asian companies and their partners can benefit from deeper market understanding, making their campaigns more impactful across Asia.

A Shift Towards Pan-Asian AI Standards

With Trump’s policies creating a potential divide in AI development approaches, Asian countries may push for unified AI standards within the region. By aligning AI governance across economies, Asia could build a formidable framework that encourages innovation while ensuring ethical usage and robust privacy protections.

Countries like Japan, South Korea, and Singapore are already leaders in setting high AI standards, and an Asia-wide approach could help establish a distinctive identity in the global AI community.

This alignment would also reduce friction for companies operating across multiple Asian markets, fostering an interconnected ecosystem that accelerates growth and adaptability.

The Rise of Localised AI Applications

As trade and regulatory landscapes shift, there’s an increased incentive for Asian companies to design AI solutions that cater to local languages, cultural nuances, and consumer behaviours. Localisation has always been a critical factor for success in Asia, and AI is no exception.

From natural language processing that understands regional dialects to AI-driven marketing insights that resonate with unique consumer mindsets, tailored AI applications could see a significant boost.

This emphasis on localisation not only enhances user experience but also ensures that AI remains relevant and effective in each unique market across the continent

Conclusion: A New Era for AI in Asia

The Trump presidency may catalyse a new chapter for AI in Asia. As Asian nations brace for potential shifts in trade and technology policies, they are well-positioned to accelerate regional AI innovation, self-sufficiency, and collaboration.

By investing in local talent, fostering privacy-compliant solutions, and collaborating across the region, companies like SQREEM are driving Asia’s transformation into a global AI powerhouse.

While the future may be uncertain under a second new era of Trump, we know at least it won’t be boring for the AI industry!

Join the Conversation

As AI in Asia surges towards autonomy and privacy-first innovation, will Trump’s policies drive the region to outperform the U.S. in tech advancements? Or are we on the cusp of a global AI divide? Please share your thoughts and don’t forget to subscribe for updates on AI and AGI developments.

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  • Adrian Watkins (Guest Contributor)

    Adrian is an AI, marketing, and technology strategist based in Asia, with over 25 years of experience in the region. Originally from the UK, he has worked with some of the world’s largest tech companies and successfully built and sold several tech businesses. Currently, Adrian leads commercial strategy and negotiations at one of ASEAN’s largest AI companies. Driven by a passion to empower startups and small businesses, he dedicates his spare time to helping them boost performance and efficiency by embracing AI tools. His expertise spans growth and strategy, sales and marketing, go-to-market strategy, AI integration, startup mentoring, and investments. View all posts


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Protect Your Writing from AI Bots: A Simple Guide

This article explains how to protect your writing from AI bots using the robots.txt file, and discusses the copyright issues surrounding AI models.

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Protect writing from AI

TL;DR:

  • AI models like ChatGPT use vast amounts of text, often without permission.
  • The New York Times has sued OpenAI for copyright infringement.
  • You can protect your writing by editing your robots.txt file.

The Rise of AI and Its Hunger for Words

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the world, but it comes with challenges. AI models like ChatGPT require enormous amounts of text to train. For instance, the first version of ChatGPT was trained on about 300 billion words. That’s equivalent to writing a thousand words a day for over 800,000 years!

But where does all this text come from? Often, it’s scraped from the internet without permission, raising serious copyright concerns.

The Case of The New York Times vs. OpenAI

In a high-profile case, The New York Times sued OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI scraped millions of articles from The New York Times and used them to train its AI models. Sometimes, these models even reproduce chunks of text verbatim.

“OpenAI made three hundred million in August and expects to hit $3.7 billion this year.” – The New York Times

This raises a crucial question: How would you feel if AI models were using your writing without permission?

The Looming Content Crisis

AI companies face a potential content crisis. A study by Epoch AI suggests that AI models could run out of human-generated content as early as 2026. This could lead to stagnation, as AI models need fresh content to keep improving.

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“The AI field might face challenges in maintaining its current pace of progress once it drains the reserves of human-generated writing.” – Tamay Besiroglu, author of the Epoch AI study

Protecting Your Writing: The robots.txt File

So, how can you protect your writing? The solution lies in a simple text file called robots.txt. This file tells robots (including AI bots) what they can and can’t access on your website.

Here’s how it works:

  1. User-agent: This is the name of the robot. For example, ‘GPTBot’ for ChatGPT.
  2. Disallow: This means ‘no’.
  3. The slash (/): This means the whole website or account.

So, if you want to block ChatGPT from accessing your writing, you would add this to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

How to Edit Your robots.txt File

If you have your own website, you can edit the robots.txt file to block AI bots.

Here’s how:

  • Using the Yoast SEO plugin: Go to Yoast > Tools > File Editor.
  • Using FTP access: The robots.txt file is in the root directory.
  • Using the WP Robots Txt plugin: This is a simple, non-technical solution. Just go to Plugins > Add New, then type in ‘WP Robots Txt’ and click install.

Once you’re in the robots.txt file, copy and paste the following to block common AI bots:

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: Omgilibot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /

The Common Crawl Dilemma

Common Crawl is a non-profit organisation that creates a copy of the internet for research and analysis. Unfortunately, OpenAI used Common Crawl data to train its AI models. If you want to block Common Crawl, add this to your robots.txt file:

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User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

The Future of AI and Copyright Law

The future of AI and copyright law is uncertain. Until the laws change, the best way to protect your writing is to block AI bots using the robots.txt file.

“Until they change copyright laws and intellectual property laws and give the rights to he with the most money — your words are yours.”

Comment and Share:

How do you feel about AI models using your writing without permission? Have you checked your robots.txt file? Share your thoughts and experiences below. And don’t forget to subscribe for updates on AI and AGI developments!

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