Commission revises Center Lake Park mural call to ban AI in final designs

The commission voted to revise the call to artists for a mural at Center Lake Park and require entrants to certify that final designs are not generated by artificial intelligence, after staff told members that the city council raised concerns about possible AI use in submitted designs.

Staff told the commission the mural selection had been reviewed by the Community Redevelopment Agency and then by city council, which asked the commission to readvertise the call with explicit no‑AI language. Unidentified Speaker (S4) said the council was uncomfortable because the original call did not include any criteria addressing AI and that some community members and applicants had raised concerns that portions of the submitted work “look like it may have been done artificially.”

Commissioners spent much of the meeting defining what “use of AI” means in practice and how to enforce a ban. Members debated the difference between using AI to ideate or enhance a sketch (for example, collaging, using Photoshop or Procreate) versus generating final imagery with a text‑to‑image tool. S4 and the senior attorney cautioned that automated detection tools are imperfect and can produce false positives; S4 said tests of detection software returned high AI probabilities in some cases but that the tools are “not 100% reliable.”

The group discussed procedural safeguards used in other jurisdictions — including disclosure clauses in RFQ/RFP documents and a two‑stage procurement that uses an RFQ to select finalists and a small stipend (cited during discussion as $100) for finalists to produce bespoke proposals. Unidentified Speaker (S9) referenced policies in larger jurisdictions and local examples where disclosure agreements limit AI to ideation and prohibit AI from creating final digital products.

To address both fairness to artists and council direction, staff proposed a resubmission process: reopen the call with clear criteria, require artists to sign a declaration that they did not use AI to generate the final design, and allow artists who can document manual sketches or workflows to resubmit. Commissioners debated whether AI should be an automatic disqualifier or subject to point deductions; the prevailing direction from council and the commission was to treat generative AI in the final design as a disqualifier.

After refining evaluation language — emphasizing “artistic vision and quality of proposed design,” community connection, submission completeness and a narrative explaining an artist’s link to Oviedo — a motion to approve the revised mural evaluation criteria passed on a voice vote. The commission directed staff to send participants a letter explaining the reopening, the new criteria, and the documentation required for resubmissions.

The board said the revised call should make clear that using AI to generate the final submitted artwork will disqualify an entry and that applicants may be asked to provide process documentation or sketches to demonstrate original authorship. Staff will post the updated call and accept revisions during a mult‑week resubmission window before the commission considers finalists.