An AI-generated concept for a mural has been approved in the city, stirring fears in the local creative community for the future of arts preservation.  

Nearly every day in my first year at Strathclyde, I would leave my accommodation, walk down the steps towards Graham Hills building, with a grand mural and a tour group on my right as I headed to class. Trying to avoid feeling like a ‘tourist’ when moving to Glasgow, I dismissed the famous mural tour, but through my year and a half here, I have had one of my own, so to speak, whilst exploring the city.  

I have always admired the art pieces, particularly around campus, brightening up the university’s distinctive brutalist architecture. It felt like a great pride of the city, turning buildings that some might call bleak into something worth celebrating, tying into its cultural and artistic backbone.

That was, until I saw the news, as most have, for a new mural on Elmbank Street. The concept, released and proposed by Derek Paterson, is AI-generated. Upon a quick glance, I spotted a bald eagle, which is not native to Scotland, a vague depiction of the Wallace monument and wind turbines – ironic, considering the well-known environmental impact of generative AI. 

The city council and Paterson have defended it, claiming it to be a mock-up for an artist to have free rein over the final product, yet many Glaswegian artists have come forward and rejected this, as human involvement should have been used from the very beginning.  

Similar backlash against AI usage erupted back in 2024, when Glasgow’s prestigious art school Glasgow School of Art, promoted a degree show using an AI image from a student’s AI-generated project. An online community of artists highlighted how concerning this was at the time for the future of human art.

This made me think of artists at the institution that I know personally, including my sister, Emily (@emilyedgarillo), who is a third-year illustration student at GSA. I sat down with my sister and her friends, Ella (@ellaritch.art) and Mara, in the Vic, the art school’s student union, to have a chat about the mural and the future of AI in the creative industry. I wanted to get the actual perspective of Glasgow’s young artistic talent.  

“The person who created the AI image had to include a prompt, and it doesn’t make sense why we would do that, but not give that prompt to an actual artist, and then they would be able to create something relevant to Scotland”, Emily expressed.  

They all reached a consensus against the conception of the image being AI-generated, arguing it is as if “humans are working for AI”.  

When thinking about the design myself, I questioned why it started with AI. If it was about money, I was sure artists like my sister or her peers would have jumped at the opportunity for exposure, without needing much in return. The issue goes beyond AI art being immoral; it threatens the survival of the arts in a city relying on it. A UNESCO city of music, European city of culture in 1990; why is the Glasgow City Council not prioritising what put them on the map?

Ella Ritch, third-year GSA student, shared this concern, “I think when there’s so many young creatives who are seeking employment, […] why are you making AI do something that someone would have happily done?”, then added, “The actual design is not good. There are so many illustrators that we know who would have jumped at the opportunity.”

Mara Sellman, also a third-year student at GSA, agreed, “I bet a lot of people, especially from art school, would just do it for their name being out there, and you’re already having to hire artists to remake the AI image, why not let them have full control of it?”

For young artists and even journalists like me, the decreasing value that the city is putting on its creative industry comes off as disingenuous and disheartening.

All the more alarming, murals are historically intended to send a political or unique cultural message through a creative lens. Rogue One and Art Pistol’s piece on Mitchell Street, depicting a woman blowing a dandelion, sends a message about Scotland’s advancements in sustainable energy. In contrast, Paterson’s proposed piece, claiming to also highlight this Scottish feat by collaging a picture of wind turbines into the image, feels hypocritical and incredibly on the nose. 

This demonstrates the very point that Glasgow-based artists are begging the council to see: AI-generated art should not be esteemed as our new future, and it will never express or replicate emotions and creativity in the way that humans always have.  After my sit-down in The Vic, I walked up Scott Street hill and popped into “Grateful Gallery” (@GratefulGlasgow), known for hosting local artists and commissioning new murals every month on the side of its buildings. I spoke to Ciaran Glöbel, one of three people behind the venue, expecting a similar answer, but he had a slightly more nuanced take.

“I realise AI is here to stay”, he said, “If I could click my fingers, and it would be put on a leash […] I would do that, but I think it’s more worthwhile to work around it or work with it.”“I don’t use AI, I have no use for it in my line of work, […] but, we need to learn with it, work around it and realise it is a tool to be harnessed in some way.”

Although I understand his point that AI art will likely be part of our future, I can only hope for this to not be the case.  I hope for Glasgow to follow in the footsteps of London, when, in late 2025, public backlash over a sloppy AI-generated mural caused it to be quickly taken down, because, when I see a tourist by Graham Hills, I want to feel civic pride in the real, human expression of our city that they have come here to see.