A few weeks ago, the Ohio State Fair had a poster contest. Grand prize was $1,000. It was won by someone submitting the most banal, directly-copied AI slop imaginable:

You don’t need to take my word for it. The officials came out and posted the following:

When the poster contest was originally formed in 2024, the use of AI was permitted if explained as a part of the application process. However, we recognize that the use of AI has changed greatly over the last few years in ways we didn’t anticipate, and will be reevaluating the rules and processes for 2027, which will include prohibiting the use of AI. We are committed to celebrating Ohio artists, with a number of other competitions that don’t permit AI, including the fine arts exhibition, creative arts competitions, mural contest, and plein air painting.

To be fair to the artist prompt engineer, there weren’t any rules against it. Which is honestly surprising, considering Colorado had this same exact issue back in 2022 during their State Fair art contest. Also, who in the Boomer fuck was judging this contest in the first place? You can use the original link to see 2nd-5th place, any of which I would argue are objectively better than what was selected.

Of course, I’m kind of assuming the others weren’t just AI themselves. Second place has me suspicious.

Anyway, add it to the pile.