TL;DR
Bars, restaurants and print shops across Northern Ireland are publicly refusing AI-generated artwork, with one Belfast pub among the first in the region to declare itself an AI-free venue. A Derry card maker has told customers to stop bringing him ChatGPT designs to print, turning down their money in the process. The refusals cost real revenue, which is what makes them worth noting.
The tell became obvious
During this month’s Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Belfast filled with promotional material sharing an identical glossy sameness: caricatured musicians on gig posters, unnaturally shiny burgers on menus, and several Ed Sheerans apparently touring the city. By then most passers-by had worked out where it was coming from.
Refusal as a commercial position
Chris Ferry, whose greeting cards trade on a specifically Derry sense of humour, told his customers in a widely shared video not to “be coming to me asking me to print a birthday card you’ve made on ChatGPT ever again”. People had started arriving at the shop with their own generated designs. They offered to pay; he declined and explained why, while making a point of not holding it against them. “It’s the principle.”
Frances Smyth, a freelance designer and part-time Ulster University lecturer who graduated in 2021, described agencies losing clients as soon as a business starts looking for savings. Her verdict on what replaces them was blunt — “regurgitative and soulless” — and she would sooner see a gig poster drawn on a post-it note.
Venues follow
One Belfast bar has boycotted AI across its premises and its social media, citing artists’ livelihoods and the environmental cost, with co-owner Tomas Gorman calling it “a deeply damaging technology” for local creatives. Mandela Hall at Queen’s has taken a comparable stance.
The more revealing case is Mal Houston of Three Rivers Restaurant, who had used AI posters during the Fleadh until somebody stuck “Say no to AI” labels on a few of them. He has since dropped them, “even if it does save a few shillings”, while being candid that hospitality margins make the temptation real.
Looking forward
Most reporting on the creative backlash measures sentiment: surveys of artists who dislike the technology. This is a different thing — named traders forgoing revenue and cost savings in a sector with little of either to spare.
Whether it holds is a pricing question more than an ethical one. Refusing cheap artwork is sustainable only while customers reward it. Resultsense recently covered Cumbrian booksellers who suspect AI firms of quietly buying up their stock; those traders were watching a transaction arrive. These ones are declining one. Both are the same market working out whether “made by a person” is a feature buyers will actually pay for.