Until Aug. 31, that is, when a pair of suspects ripped the mural off the wall in broad daylight, police said. Only studs and bits of the edges remain.

Detectives are investigating the theft and exploring multiple leads, Cambridge Police Department Sergeant Robert Reardon said Wednesday. Hope, who said he paid $5,500 for the art and installation, is planning to file an insurance claim.

Hope commissioned local artist Brian Life to create the banner using AI, and the two worked together for about five months to bring an idea to fruition. But Hope doesn’t think someone stole it for personal gain. He thinks the banner, which was located just across the street from Graffiti Alley, might have been targeted because it was made with AI.

“They might assume that it was cheaper, quicker, and did not include an artist,” Hope said.

Indeed, there was chatter this summer that Hope shouldn’t have used AI to add to the area’s street art culture, said Gary Strack, who launched Graffiti Alley in 2007. For nearly two decades, the alley has been one of only a few public sites in Greater Boston where anyone can legally post graffiti art.

“The question sort of goes, ‘does AI have a place in street art?,’” Strack said. “AI is a tool lots of artists use, no doubt, but it’s interesting that now it’s coming down to the street level.”

Graffiti Alley has long been known as a “temporal” space, Strack said, where colorful creations are painted and re-painted on top of each other.

For that reason, he said he wasn’t surprised Hope’s mural was ripped off the wall.

“Things get covered over in Graffiti Alley all day long,” Strack said. “There’s no sense of permanence on the street, and I don’t think there should be.”

The artwork that Dx Arcade owner Sean Hope commissioned artist Brian Life to create using AI.Courtesy of Sean Hope

Hope’s 20-by-10 foot banner featured figures walking beneath bright neon street signs and storefronts, including a depiction of Dx Arcade. Having formerly worked as a zoning attorney, Hope said he wanted the mural to conjure what a more built-up Central Square could look like decades from now. The mural was also meant to promote the arcade, he said.

“I really went for something that looked like an advertisement, it looked like a picture,” Hope said.

But that didn’t sit right with some street art proponents, Strack said.

“One of the ways the [street art] community developed was as a reaction to billboards and ads that that people put up everywhere,” he said.

This summer, someone voiced their disdain for the Dx Arcade mural by tagging it with the message “f*** AI,” Hope said.

“People are just intolerant,” he said.

NBC 10 reported on Tuesday that the mural had gained a few detractors.

“I don’t think businesses should use AI for advertising,” Caden Ahmed told the television station. “I’m happy it’s gone.”

The banner thieves could be charged with “art theft,” according to police.

“It could go to someone’s motivation for stealing it,” Reardon said on Wednesday.

Claire Thornton can be reached at claire.thornton@globe.com. Follow Claire on X @claire_thornto.