Belfast artists ban 'cannibalising' AI art at festive market

BELFAST — Artist organisers of an annual Christmas market in Northern Ireland have banned the sale of artwork and products generated by artificial intelligence, arguing AI cannibalises the work of low-paid creatives.

"We have to take a stand," Jonathan Brennan, co-organiser of the Belfast market told AFP, standing beside a "supporting human creativity" poster featuring an "AI ban" logo.

Ahead of the popular long-running yearly fair in the Northern Irish capital, the organisers -- the Vault artists collective -- told traders that selling AI-generated art this year was not on.

"People come here to appreciate unique gifts, handmade things, that you won't find anywhere else," Brennan said.

Organisers now feel forced to emphasise their artwork is created by humans due to the "threat" posed by AI, according to the bespectacled visual artist.

Using AI to produce art equates to "jumping to a solution without any of the hard graft, discipline or potential happy accidents that can happen in the creative process," he added.

"You end up with something which is kind of soulless."

Some 80 artists offered original artworks, prints, and fashion items at stalls at the two-day fair, held each year over a weekend in the run-up to Christmas.

They included Lee Boyd, a 49-year-old street artist and screen printer, who said he wants "pushback" against "cannibalising" AI art.

"A lot of the work for illustrators and graphic designers is just gone," the Vault member who came up with the idea for the ban told AFP.

In recent years "artists will have noticed that most of their sales are down," he noted, pinning the blame squarely on AI.

Beside a stall displaying his handmade photographic prints from the original darkroom negatives, artist, broadcaster and journalist Stuart Bailie dismissed the notion computers can match people's artistic imagination.

"A lot of chemicals, late nights (and) a lot of trouble and toil went into creating these," he said, pointing at his prints.

"I'm a great believer in human beings creating stuff through their own energy and initiative."

Among the throngs of shoppers browsing the market's aisles Matt McQuillan, 34, told AFP that AI art is "akin to stealing artists' work"

"If we don't support artists then we won't have them anymore," the software engineer said after purchasing a piece.