Like a mirage speeding across the dusty desert outside Pueblo, Colorado, the first hydrogen-fuel-cell passenger train in the United States is getting warmed up on its test track. It will soon be shipped to Southern California, where it is slated to carry riders on San Bernardino County's Arrow commuter rail service before the end of the year. The best way to decarbonize railroads is the subject of growing debate among regulators, industry, and activists. The debate is partly technological, revolving around whether hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, or overhead electric wires offer the best performance for different railroad situations. In the insular world of railroading, this hydrogen-powered train is a Rorschach test.

Jason Allen, a video game designer in Pueblo, Colorado, spent roughly 80 hours working on his entry to the Colorado State Fair's digital arts competition. Judges awarded him first place, which came with a $300 prize. But when Allen posted about his win on social media late last month, his artwork went viral--for all the wrong reasons. Allen's victory took a turn when he revealed online that he'd created his prize-winning art using Midjourney, an artificial intelligence program that can turn text descriptions into images. He says he also made that clear to state fair officials when he dropped off his submission, called Théâtre D'opéra Spatial.

The winning artwork was created using the AI tool Midjourney – which turns lines of text into astonishingly realistic graphics. The award came with a $300 cash prize. AI tools to generate images have been around for years with companies such as Google and OpenAI being notable investors in these text-to-image systems. "I'm not going to apologise for it … I won and I didn't break any rules," Allen, who is from Pueblo, Colorado, told The New York Times newspaper in an interview published on Friday. However, many have taken to social media to express their anger and despair over the award, arguing it took away from the hard work invested by humans to physically create noteworthy art.

Jason M. Allen was almost too nervous to enter his first art competition. Now, his award-winning image is sparking controversy about whether art can be generated by a computer, and what, exactly, it means to be an artist. In August, Allen, a game designer who lives in Pueblo West, Colorado, won first place in the emerging artist division's "digital arts/digitally-manipulated photography" category at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition. His winning image, titled "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial" (French for "Space Opera Theater"), was made with Midjourney -- an artificial intelligence system that can produce detailed images when fed written prompts. A $300 prize accompanied his win.