Above all else, Shop SB Local believes in putting local artists and community members first. Although they have widely been advertised as the way of the future, generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) pose deep and major threats to the local artists, artisans, and artistic community that Shop SB Local proudly represents. For that reason, Shop SB Local does not allow a) the sale of AI-generated at any of our markets or events, or b) allow the use of AI-generated advertisements or promotional materials to promote our events, your presence at our events, of any other elements of the Shop SB Local brand. Use of AI materials in violation of this policy will result in either the automatic denial of your application or the termination of your right to vend at our event without a refund of your vendor fee.

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Wondering why we at Shop SB Local feel so strongly about AI? Here are five big reasons why this is our policy:

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1. AI steals art and devalues artists

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When you see how quickly AI can spit out photorealistic images or artwork that looks almost human, it is easy to fool yourself into thinking that AI can replace a lot of the work done by human artists. But did you ever wonder how AI got good at making replicas of human art in the first place? As a number of legal proceedings over the last few years have made clear, AI was trained to produce art by consuming thousands and thousands of works of art made by human artists. None of these artists received any type of financial compensation for the ways in which their contributions can now be generalized and repackaged for AI users. Moreover, the lifelong work artists commit to developing distinctive artistic styles, shaping profound artistic messages, and mastering technical skills.

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Paying an AI company for art based on uncompensated work by independent artists is enough of an ethical problem to want to stay away from AI-generated artwork. But another impact of the way that AI and LLMs generate art is artistic averageness. Think about it: when an AI art generator responds to prompts by averaging out millions of possible inputs, the end product of any prompt will by definition always be an average. Great art takes chances and makes choices that stand out against the background. Human artists are always better equipped to make impactful art because they, unlike AI, have a connection of their own to their subject matter and are able to decide on their own not only what specific elements should be in a given piece of art, but why they should be there.

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2. AI is a major environmental threat

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The rise of generative AI has required the construction of more and more massive data centers across the country and the world. AI data centers consume a truly massive amount of energy and water- so much, in fact, that data centers radically change the environmental conditions of their surroundings. Communities across the country have reported alarming, severe rises in air temperature and air pollution following the construction of data centers nearby, and the strains on local water and power resources further exacerbate these conditions. Using AI is not only a matter of artistic choice: it also demonstrably affects our planet and the people who live on it.

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3. AI keeps things non-local

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Shop SB Local believes in the importance of fostering local art. Art offers countless ways to tell stories about the world we live in, and our experience of art is deeply enriched when we see art respond to the conditions of our own lives. AI models are the products of international corporations that have their own financial (and political) interests at heart. Routing our artistic expression through Big AI takes away an important piece of the local artist's voice. After all, why would AI know better than you what a good painting of Santa Barbara would look like? You're miles closer to the real version than an AI data center, so why trust the AI version more than a version based on local, human sensibilities?

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4. AI is not careful or conscious

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Another dangerous side of the way AI generates outputs is its high propensity for error. If you train a Large Language Model on text (such as scoops of publicly available websites, publications, etc.) that includes factual errors, bigotry, and out-of-context nonsense, the LLM will naturally spit out a product impacted by these errors and will not automatically develop any sensitivity to the difference between fact and harmful fiction. This isn't to say that AI is always wrong, or even wrong most of the time on all topics. However, the high error rate of AI queries is well documented, as is the bizarre and chilling phenomenon of AI deception. Blindly trusting an AI as an authority on a topic is a demonstrably bad idea: there's a reason that Wikipedia, by far the largest and most widely read encyclopedia in the world, has banned AI-generated articles. AI will never know by itself how or when to check for its mistakes. Moreover, it's always important to remember that the priorities of an AI company and its executives don't necessarily align with the interests of its consumers, and there's no reason to expect that AI companies always play fair in the way they train their models to respond to prompts.

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5. AI kills your brain

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Clinical research studies have shown clearly that even a short span of relying on AI to complete tasks can have a major effect on how your brain works. A major MIT study found that after even short periods of regular AI use, AI users showed markedly lower levels of brain activity in several important regions of the brain. The study also showed that people who started using AI tended to shift more and more of their workload to AI and began to lose their confidence in their own ability to complete simple tasks. Shop SB Local believes that our community is strongest when its people are healthiest. Thinking for yourself is an important part of a healthy lifestyle!

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