We are thrilled to announce the results of our recent GeoAI Prompt Contest, a remarkable event that witnessed wide participation from the University of Washington community. This year, we received a total of 56 submissions, featuring an array of artworks from undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, and faculty members. By harnessing generative Artificial Intelligence, the contest fosters deep reflection and artistic expression concerning pressing issues such as climate change, food security, social and economic inequality, globalization, and more. These challenges underscore the vital role geography holds in shaping our shared future. We can elucidate these challenges for Humanities and the Earth with AI, raising awareness of their significance and urgency.
Organizing and judging an AI art contest presents unique challenges, given the complexity and depth of each piece. The artworks submitted were not only visually stunning but also carried profound meanings, making the selection process incredibly difficult. Our panel of judges, composed of undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, and faculty with expertise in Geography, GIS and AI, meticulously evaluated each submission. They based their decisions on a range of criteria, including Originality, Relevance to Theme, Artistic Expression, Technical Proficiency, and Emotional Impact & Message Conveyance.
It’s important to acknowledge that art is subjective, and each judge brought their own preferences and biases to the table. However, after careful consideration and spirited discussion, we have identified the top three winners and 20 honorable mentions, which we are excited to showcase below.
1st Place - Buy Now, Get Newer - Tomorrow. Worry-Free Returns.
Michael Lieue
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: In hyperrealism style, heap of Factories labeled “fast fashion inc.” and “new stuff,” churning mountains of consumable which delivered by huge airplane, rockets, ships, trains, and lined trucks congesting highway to landfill. All buildings and vehicles produce smoke. Tents next to landfill. Digital billboards and trucks show “don’t fix.” “New now!” and, “One day deliver!” “Own today!” “Trending!” orange smog and seawater.
Description
Humanity’s supply chain struggles keeping pace with the latest iteration of the globalized e-commerce economy. Digitized advertisements further our insatiable demand for latest products and doorstep delivery convenience - in turn flooding our skies, oceans, and landscape with energy-intensive logistics traffic - while simultaneously accelerating the rate at which formerly-trendy products are disposed. The carbon-intensive factories and retailers produce economic growth which is irresistible to society as a means of increasing wealth and representation…which is in reality, distributed with inequality. While wealth allows the corporate to “find higher ground” away from the rising and polluted waters with international mobility of titanic proportions, the majority of individuals across all species must settle in the wash zone created by climate change. The relatively few tents in scene illustrate the growing phenomenon of corporate land-grab for real estate purposes, and full time employees being paid less than a living wage. The conveyed informational power of an image is beyond words, and in this case, I hope to give the reader a detailed view of the actual consequences of using one-day delivery to keep up with online trends while fully understanding the challenge it takes for and individual to complete the challenge of leading by example of resisting the trend and allures of buying newness.
Judges’ Comments
This artwork is a compelling and impactful visualization of the current issues of overconsumption and the environmental impacts of our global supply chain. The intricate details and the overwhelming representation of the supply chain, from factories to landfills, brilliantly illustrate the unsustainable pace of our consumerist lifestyle. The dark humor embedded in the title and the imagery, as well as the choice to overcrowd the scene, powerfully conveys the pressing nature of these issues.
2nd Place - Modern Loneliness
Logan Hosoda
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: never ending relapsing addiction to technology, photorealism.
Description
I wanted to create an image that depicts how technology, while innovative has also led to social isolation, digital addiction, and sedentary behaviors. As someone who experienced an increase in technology reliance throughout the introduction to cellular devices and global pandemic, I thought it was important to convey that technological addiction often detracts from everyday routines. I hope that when others view the image they stop and reflect on their own usage of technology, serving as a reminder to look at life beyond the screen.
Judges’ Comments
This entry compellingly captures the paradox of our digital era. Its photorealistic portrayal of technology addiction and social isolation resonates deeply, reflecting a universal challenge of the modern world. This artwork, with its evocative and visually striking composition, effectively invites viewers to contemplate the impact of digital life on our daily existence.
3rd Place - A Detached Glimpse
Paula Zhong
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: tiny cartoon human trapped in glass box with bright screen glaring into glass box, box in vast room full of looming news headlines and stacks of newspapers and walls of text, disconcerting.
Description
Viewing the world solely through the words and perspectives of other people is limiting if there is no balance with our own thought. When there are heavy events happening around the world, I feel there can be a lack of empathy and humanity in our responses to them. A disconnect. Headlines and breaking news stories blare at us and regarding events from afar makes it easy to be detached and apathetic.
Judges’ Comments
We are impressed by this artwork for its powerful visual narrative and its relevance to the theme of information overload in our digital age. This piece brilliantly encapsulates the paradox of our times: being bombarded with information while feeling increasingly detached. It serves as a poignant reminder of the need for empathy in our responses to global events, making it a deserving recipient of third place in the contest.
20 Honorable Mentions
Suffocation of Second Chances
Olivia Lyn Grillo
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: people walking in eery city with gas masks surrounded by polluted air and trash on the street.
My artwork depicts a possible look into the future of our society with the way we are currently treating our planet. Individuals are seen wearing gas masks, surrounded by extremely polluted air and streets flooded with piling waste.
Space Dump
Ainsley Lawler
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: Trash rings around earth realistic.
This image depicts the future once we run out of places to store our trash on Earth, so we decided to send it into space. This could be the future brought by single use plastics and unnecessary waste produced by a consumer society.
One Earth, Many Hearts
Nathan Greenwood
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: Generate a painting of a group of people of diverse nationalites together in harmony, standing at the edge of a field of decaying plants and animals. With black factories in the background. In the center of the field, there is a small sliver of greenery, plants, and other life. The people gaze at the green oasis with expressions of hope and unity. The image should convey Earthly decay through climate change while demonstrating there is hope if humanity works together.
This is meant to convey a simple theme, that wherever humanity is disjointed, fighting, or discordant the Earth will decay and be consumed by individual greed. Only by working together in unity can we preserve the Earth and nature.
A Sweet Treat for Oil
Abigail Chinn
Using Bing Image Creator Prompt: melting earth as ice cream with big oil companies eating it.
Beginning in the mid-18th century with the start of the Industrial Revolution, the combustion of fossil fuels kicked-off the accumulation of excessive amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. With the increase of GHGs, a collection of several effects have resulted, one of which being the increase in average, global temperature of the Earth. As a metaphor, Earth is a melting ice cream with its primary cause of melting (or increased temperature) being the oil industry.
Return of the King
Annie Kang
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: salmon breaking through a dam watercolor.
While dams provide reliable, renewable energy, they also degrade river habitats. So, instead of seeing yet another dam causing the death of fish, I wanted to see the opposite. While it’s not feasible to remove every dam, there are many dams in the US that generate very little power yet continue to stand and block fish migration because their local governments might not have the resources or desire yet to breach them. Although dams are only one of many reasons why salmon are endangered in the US, I want to help bring more awareness to how the infrastructure we’ve built directly impacts the environment and our responsibility in minimizing that impact as much as possible.
Submerge
Jaf Kongkaeo
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: A cube containing environmental friendly civilization. The cube is submerging into a deep ocean abyss with microplastic fish and waste flowing. The cube’s contour is about to break. On the cube is a small, clean city floating.
A picture of a cube representing a remnants of polluting civilization, slowly sinking into a deep ocean. Around it, you can see tiny plastic fish and waste floating in the water. The cube’s shape is starting to crack, but there’s a clean and tiny city on top, seemingly floating. This image tells the story of an environmentally conscious city struggling in an already polluted and deteriorating world.
If the Titanic Had Sunk Today
Megan Sayasemawong
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: Titanic debris in trash ocean.
Imagine if the Titanic had sunk today, there would have been a lot of plastics and trash humans create under the ocean.
Colonizing Mars!
Muhammad Hamzi Bin Mohd Rapi
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: Rich people landed on Mars while Earth was in the background.
On the surface, it might seem like an extravagant, elite expedition, but amidst the grandeur of this cosmic odyssey, there’s a glaring absence: a lack of commitment to saving the Earth.
Nudum Pactum
Mia Bennett
Using MidJourney. Prompt: A Chinese mother and her baby, who are in a kayak, sailing through a sunken underwater Hong Kong, at night, as shipping containers sink down, with neon lights filtering through the dark shimmery water, 8k, ultra wide angle, steam –ar 16:9 - Upscaled (4x).
Rising sea levels, acidifying oceans, and the crisis of global capitalism – here encapsulated by burning container ships – are just a few of the challenges facing humanity. This image captures the somber mood of the Anthropocene while offering a glimmer of hope in the form of the next generation, to whom we promise a better world.
Polluted Seal
Timmy Nguyen
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: photo of sea animals covered in trash and oil from pollution.
Seal covered in trash from pollution and oil from spills.
Cities Over Salmon
Sydney Rose
Using DALL·E 3. Prompt: Create a political cartoon-style image of a Seattle street with the Space Needle in the background and a Pike Place Market sign in the foreground. Illustrate stormwater pollution with dead salmon in the water. Show a man driving an SUV on the street, saying, ‘Make the roads wider!’ in a speech bubble. Include high-rise buildings emitting black smoke from chimneys.
This picture shows flooding and dying salmon and other wildlife, meanwhile the main complaint by a person driving a huge SUV is that the roads are too small. The background shows smoke polluting the Pacific Northwest, namely Seattle. The issue I am trying to highlight here is stormwater runoff from cities that gets into local bodies of water and results in deaths of Coho Salmon that are vital to the ecosystem, as well as many other similar pollution patterns that come from cities through water, air, and soil.
Dichotomy of Data: Urban Utopia and the Gaze Unseen
Zeyu Wang
Using DALL·E 3. Prompt: Initial: Could you please generate an image that captures the dichotomy of big data privacy concerns in urban societies. It should illustrate the convenience brought to people through the analysis of data generated by individuals. However, it should also convey the sentiment that people feel as if they are under constant surveillance.Oil panting preferred. Revisions: I like the image on the right side (the second one), however, I want the contradictory to be more obvious. I want to see the happy faces on the left side, and the right side should be fear.
In general, the artwork shows the dual nature of big data in urban life in an intriguing juxtaposition. The image’s left half, which shows individuals interacting peacefully with cutting-edge technology, radiates warmth and energy. The urban landscape is infused with sensors and smart gadgets, implying a smooth fusion of modernity and convenience. The advantages of a linked, smart city are evident in the satisfied and relaxed demeanor of the populace. The tone changes as it moves to the right. Here, monitoring tools and cameras are covertly incorporated into the surroundings, making the components of surveillance more obvious. The people on this side are clearly worried; their body language suggests discomfort and their expressions are thoughtful. It captures the ubiquitous feeling of being watched that comes with big data developments. The atmosphere is tinted with caution.
Our Oceans
Natalie Stillwell
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: Pollution causing algae to grow and fill up the ocean.
While algae is an essential part of aquatic ecosystems, human influences can lead to eutrophication and dead zones. Algae is not an inherent issue, but polluting human behaviors can cause it to kill marine life and degrade ecosystems. This, alongside other pollution like plastic, has caused our oceans and the life within them to suffer.
Whispers of the Vanishing Forest: When Trees Release Their Souls
Tejasvi Narayanan
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: Deforestation and tree’s soul leaving the trees.
The image depicts a haunting scene of a dense forest being gradually depleted due to deforestation. The title “Whispers of the Vanishing Forest: When Trees Release Their Souls” suggests a mystical and sorrowful theme. In the image, you see a forest with trees that appear to be fading away or transforming into ghostly figures. It is also valuable to note that the trees’ emotions are captured as they are being deforested. Down hill, we see several bulldozers cutting trees for lumber. These spectral tree-like forms symbolize the departure of the trees’ essence or ““souls”” as they are cut down or otherwise removed from the forest. The image conveys a powerful message about the environmental impact of deforestation and its consequences on the natural world.
Watching Ourselves
Chris Copeland
Using MidJourney. Prompt: small groups of women staring at a huge building sized computer screen displaying a violent war on the screen. tall buildings in the distance. wealthy nation growth economy. pickup trucks. picnic. protest. dystopian. utopian. 1960’s. large infrustructure. socialist harmony and peace. green infrustructure. democracy. people having fun. human flourishing. love. abundance. food. the image has lots of green. brutalist buildings. landscape architecture. futurist woodstock. vienna housing. berlin. seattle. women eating food. men being violent. high contrast image.
The image is four vignettes of people around the world looking at giant screens. Some watch themselves, others watch the struggles of other people unfold. The environment in each image is distinctly different, speaking to the relative relationships of people between each scene.
Power and Innocence
Jasnoor Kaur Hans
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: silhouette of multiple men with suits with tall buildings and factories with smoke behind them, silhouette of soldiers on the bottom of men with suits, tanks, on the bottom of the image there is a crying baby, baby has dirt on its face, war time, on water depleted, dry land.
My artwork consists of a group of men on top, which signifies their power and their control over the government and how countries function. There is a baby crying and sitting on water-depleted land, which signifies climate change and loss of resources, due to the power politics of a few people. I chose to include a baby because babies are innocent; they do not understand the fight for power between countries. There are army soldiers and tanks because this war was ordered by the men in power, which has resulted in additional loss of resources, and the baby is suffering from intensity of the violence. This image portrays how the innocent suffer from the actions of the government and those in power.
Doom Scrolling Past Our Future
Ana Luisa Gutierrez
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: people using their phones sharing posts about helping the world and their surroundings are decaying buildings, dried trees and animals in danger of extinction, surrounding the people there are billboards about them sharing on social media to take action and help the world.
People glued to their screens, scrolling through social media, totally wrapped up in the digital world. Meanwhile, behind them the world is suffering from our neglect. The people in the front are so into their devices that they’ve detached what they see on social media from what’s happening around them. Even though there’s a lot of talk about environmental issues online, it seems like all the sharing is replacing real, active steps in the real world to tackle global challenges.
Chess-“man”
Haoyu Yue
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: The unintended consequences of the out-of-control usage of AI within cities, such as in transportation, urban planning and housing, without enough public hearing and supervising from people.
A man is playing chess in our city as the chessboard while our urban systems, built environment, and human behaviors are just chessmen to him. Inevitably, AI agents are playing more and more important roles in urban public decision-making. However, we should be cautious about the use of AI systems in cities, strengthen the transparency of algorithms, and prioritize people/public oversight in AI-driven choices. Don’t let cities end up being toys of AI.
2nd Try
Joseph Minsky
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: In front, People tend to a community garden. They are preparing to harvest food. They are surrounded by low level modest buildings. Slightly covered by a smokey fog lay ultra modern high rise buildings, creating waste.
I was trying to show that communities can provide healthy fresh food inside food deserts.
Whispers of Extinction
Risa Nabari
Using Bing Image Creator. Prompt: Generate an image encapsulating loss of biodiversity, due to human activities such as climate change (pollution, deforestation). Dramatically with high-quality photo.
This artwork illustrates the consequences of human activities, including climate change, pollution, and deforestation, on the loss of biodiversity. The image vividly showcases the contrast between thriving, diverse ecosystems, and the barren, deteriorating landscapes resulting from these destructive human practices.
Acknowledgements
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the many individuals and organizations that made this event possible. Firstly, we would like to acknowledge the invaluable support from the University of Washington Department of Geography, UW eScience Institute, and Urban@UW. Their contributions were pivotal in bringing this contest to fruition. A special thank you to GeoDat and the geography department for their collaborative efforts in organizing this event. Their dedication and hard work were key to its success.
We are immensely grateful to geography staff members Nell Gross, Emily Uematsu, Lindsay Cael, Lisa Sturdivant and Parwati Martin for their exceptional coordination and organizational skills. Their commitment and attention to detail were instrumental in ensuring a smooth and successful contest. Our thanks also go to Jayden Fenske, Akshay K. Mehra, Emma Esteban, Liz Peng, Gunwha Oh, Michael Brown, Sarah Elwood, Sarah A. Stone, Jen Davison, Chloe Abrahams, and Andres S. Rovalo. Each of you has played a crucial role, and your contributions have been vital to the success of this event.