After criticism from illustrators and authors on social media over the bank holiday weekend, of Bradford Literature Festival’s use of AI generated images in its marketing, we wrote yesterday evening to festival director Syima Aslam to share our concerns.
Update 9 May: following our email exchange with the festival organisers and wide criticism of the festival’s use of AI generated images, we are glad to see that the images are no longer being used online. However, we have commented in our latest email to the festival organisers, ‘We hope that a full explanation can be given to those who have raised concerns together with an apology, not just for the hurt caused but for the misjudgement.’
You can read the full exchange between SoA Chief Executive Nicola Solomon Syima Aslam below.
From Nicola Solomon (2 May 2023)
Dear Syima Aslam,
I am the Chief Executive of the Society of Authors (SoA), the UK’s largest trade union for all types of illustrators, writers and literary translators. We represent over 12,000 creative professionals working at every stage of their careers.
We (and many SoA members) were extremely disappointed to learn that Bradford Literature Festival, a cultural outreach programme encompassing the best of literature, music, theatre, cultural discussions, lectures and family events is promoting this year’s line-up using AI generated images.
On Friday, we published our policy paper on artificial intelligence, and only a few weeks ago we shared our concerns about the Government’s AI white paper. We invite you to read both, but in short our concerns are:
- Copyright infringement: protected works are routinely used without permission to ‘train’ AI systems – the images you used were only possible because of that infringement.
- Lack of creators’ consent, reward or credit.
- Lack of transparency around the development and training of machine systems.
- Existential risk to creative careers.
Making a living in this industry is more challenging than ever for our members, with recent research showing that the mean full-time author income is just £7,000. Like other freelance creators, illustrators were hit hard right from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and many are still struggling to recover from the impact on their careers today. If the decision not to commission original illustrations was budget-led, even artwork licensed from a stock library could have ensured that an originating artist could be credited and rewarded for their work, albeit at a far lower rate.
In your response to criticism on social media over the weekend you tweeted ‘AI is a very fast moving and contentious subject right now for all creatives’, so you are clearly aware of the issues. That is precisely why we believe your use of AI generated imagery was inappropriate, triggering the backlash that it did, and it is why we strongly urge you to replace the AI illustrations in your publicity with credited artwork from a human creator, and explain why you have done so.
We do not wish to detract from the other good work of the Bradford Literary Festival, or question your commitment to an inclusive celebration of literature. Nor do we question the potential usefulness of machine learning systems – as tools – in all areas of human life. But at a time when publishing and the creative arts as a profession are inaccessible and unsustainable for so many, it seems ironic on the one hand to claim that Bradford Literary Festival enables the ‘seamless integration of diverse artists, audiences and issues’, while at the same time using artwork generated without human creativity but with the benefit of unpaid and uncredited access to human endeavour.
It is essential that arts commissioners – festivals, publishers, broadcasters, arts venues, and especially those that benefit from public funding – lead by example in championing the human creativity that makes this sector possible.
AI is a complex issue. Its evolution will keep many of us on the back foot for the foreseeable future. I hope we can work together to protect creative careers by supporting artists and celebrating human creativity.
Best wishes,
Nicola Solomon
From Syima Aslam (3 May 2023)
Dear Nicola,
Thank you for your email. I appreciate being invited to respond to your organisation, and your members’ concerns over the use of AI to generate early-stage creative ideas specifically for a promotional campaign for the 2023 Bradford Literature Festival. We thank you for bringing the Society of Authors (SoA) position paper on AI to our attention.
Bradford Literature Festival is a not for profit CIC that routinely commissions and employs artists of all varieties, including illustrators and digital artists, and pays the market rate for all services. For example, last year we retained an illustrator to create original artwork for our main stage. Since 2014, we have both commissioned and brought new works of art to new/non-traditional audiences through the festival and our community and education programmes.
For 2023, we retained a small, local commercial design agency to create this year’s promotional campaign as part of an update of the Bradford Literature Festival brand. We did not explicitly commission the illustrations or the use of AI, but neither did we explicitly exclude them from our brief. The agency, who employ three people plus local freelancers, were paid the market rate for their work.
The agency were asked to bring our strapline ‘explore words, discover worlds’ to life and they chose to use tools that they use regularly to achieve this. This new branding is a progression from our previous look and feel, which relied on imagery from past events and stock images to convey the festival. 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.
We are committed to retaining and paying fair rates to illustrators, creatives and other artists, and will look to further develop our brand using their services in the future.
The rise of AI is undoubtedly creating seismic changes across industries, and the debate about its proper use will continue for years to come. It is an important and evolving conversation for our society and all creative industries. We have events at the 2023 festival exploring this topic and we would invite the Society of Authors and their members to attend (we offer a wide range of discounts and concessions). Should a Society of Authors representative wish to speak we would be pleased to host you.
We appreciate the bravery of the independent illustrators, and hope they – and others – will be able to join us as we explore this new territory together – as you say “that is how we must define and use these systems, as tools to serve human development, not as entities to replace what humans do”.
I would be really happy to have a conversation with yourself about having this discussion in the festival, or if you would like to discuss this matter further.
Best wishes,
Syima
Syima Aslam MBE
CEO & Artistic Director
From Nicola Solomon (4 May 2023)
Dear Syima,
Thank you for your quick and full response. I would very much like to discuss the matter further. You have quoted our words out of context in your communications and your letter does not really address the point that AI imagery has mostly been trained on human creative works without permission or reward, which is why we are particularly disappointed to see it being utilised by a festival that embraces creativity.
We urge you again to replace the AI illustrations in your publicity with credited artwork from a human creator, and explain why you have done so.
We look forward to hearing when might be a convenient time for a discussion. We would also be happy in principle to send a speaker on this topic to your festival but would like to understand more about the form you would envisage such a presentation taking.
All best
Nicola
From Syima Aslam (9 May 2023)
Dear Nicola,
Thank you for your email.
I appreciate your recognition on social media of our previous email as thoughtful and considered. To your point that we have quoted your words out of context, please accept my apologies if the previous communication has given that impression. My intention was to respond to your concerns in a comprehensive manner, and I look forward to continuing the dialogue to ensure a mutual understanding and cooperative process.
I understand your position and appreciate the work that you have done in this space and would like to address the points you’ve raised in the past days. I would be happy to schedule a call to discuss further – we will follow up with availability.
As mentioned in my previous email, a selection of images were created as part of a brand campaign which is a piece of work we commissioned from a local Design Agency. The selection of images were built from licensed sources apart from 2 where the originating source was AI. Since the issues were brought to my attention, we have stopped using these 2 images across our platforms and these 2 images have been replaced with licensed stock images. As part of this process we asked the agency to guarantee that for their work with BLF there are no AI elements involved. However, we will not be able to replace the AI generated images on a limited amount of material that has already gone to print.
As I also mentioned we are, and always have been, committed to retaining and paying fair rates to illustrators, creatives and other artists. I would like to reiterate that this piece of brand work was paid at market rate, and to a small Yorkshire-based agency who employ a team of creatives.
I would also like to re-iterate that this is piece of brand work, for which we have always used design agencies rather than illustrators. We do commission illustrators within the festival for specific pieces of artwork, e.g., the festival stage last year was designed by an illustrator, while the branding was designed by a creative agency.
We have been, and always will be, staunch defenders of the creative industry. As I mentioned in my previous email, we are reviewing our processes and the way we work with partners to ensure it does not happen again. There was never any intention to cause any harm; we thank those who have spoken up and apologise for the hurt this has caused. We remain committed to continuing to listen to the thriving creative community that we are proud to be part of. As mentioned in my previous email, we welcome the opportunity to continue discussing this topic and are currently considering more opportunities to do so in light of the ongoing conversation.
We are aware this is a new and quickly evolving topic, of great concern to the creative industry, that requires open dialogue and consideration. We already have scheduled events in the festival on the impact of AI in written works and on the creative industries. In addition, I would like to extend an invitation to the Society of Authors to present their AI policy paper at a round-table discussion during the festival’s Creative Economic Conference to share your perspective and contribute to the ongoing conversation.
I would be happy to discuss this on our call should this be of interest to the SoA.
Best wishes,
Syima
From Nicola Solomon (9 May 2023)
Thank you, Syima,
I look forward to hearing from you with some dates for a follow up call or meeting.
I appreciate the further detail on how this occurred and the steps you have taken. I do want to make it clear that we have no difficulty with you using a design agency, rather than an independent illustrator, or in using stock images when appropriate. We would expect that any design agency should be asked to use independent designs and not to base them on AI generated images since the source of the machine learning for many of those images is unlicensed and uncredited use of the work of independent creators.
We are very pleased to learn that the AI based images have now been removed. We hope that a full explanation can be given to those who have raised concerns together with an apology, not just for the hurt caused but for the misjudgement.
We are happy to consider appearing at the festival and look forward to discussing this further with you.
Nicola
Nicola Solomon