Literary festival abandoned human artists for AI images

A LITERARY festival has been criticised by the Society of Authors (SOA) for using Ai-generated imagery instead of art produced by a human.

Critics pointed out the irony of Bradford Literature Festival featuring illustrators in its line-up while using software to generate its promotional image of a girl with a pile of books.

The SOA has urged the festival “to replace the AI illustrations with credited artwork from a human creator”.

Nicola Soloman, the SOA chief executive, said in a letter to the organisers: “We were extremely disappointed to learn that Bradford Literature Festival … is promoting this year’s line-up using Ai-generated images. It is essential that arts commissioners lead by example in championing the human creativity that makes this sector possible.” The festival receives more than £1million a year in Arts Council funding.

Syima Aslam, director of the festival, said: “We did not explicitly commission the illustrations or the use of AI but neither did we explicitly exclude them from our brief ….

“With hindsight, they could and should have been more explicit about the use of AI tools and the potential issues that this entailed and we should have fully interrogated their process. We commit to doing so going forward.” ♦ai-generated content could be watermarked so people know it has come from a robot, Sir Patrick Vallance has suggested. The former chief scientific officer told MPS the Government needed to be considering the wider impact of AI on society, and said he was concerned that people would no longer be able to recognise the truth.