{"id":138748,"date":"2025-09-07T06:01:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T06:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/138748\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T06:01:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T06:01:06","slug":"powells-books-facing-criticism-after-merchandise-created-with-help-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/138748\/","title":{"rendered":"Powell\u2019s Books facing criticism after merchandise created with help of AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) &#8211; Portland\u2019s most iconic bookstore, Powell\u2019s Books, addressed criticism Saturday after customers and workers realized that some of the store\u2019s merchandise was created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The merchandise, which featured photos of wolves and cats, drew criticism online over the weekend, with many on Facebook and Reddit saying the images appeared unnatural. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"> ILWU Local 5, a union that represents many of the store\u2019s workers, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/1CUMNJGhoU\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/1CUMNJGhoU\/\">posted on Facebook<\/a> Wednesday about the use of AI in the merchandise. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cPowell\u2019s workers have been voicing concerns about the use of AI in these designs for months and company leadership has been unmoved&#8230;\u201d the post said. \u201cMaybe feedback from customers and book industry peers will move them?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The post sparked further backlash online, and led Powell\u2019s to address the controversy in a statement Saturday: <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe want to acknowledge the concern around the designs of our recent merch. The designs were created by a local artist using Adobe tools, which now include some Al-assisted features.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">We value the work of human artists and designers, and we remain committed to keeping Powell\u2019s designs rooted in creativity and imagination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">We\u2019re already working on new apparel for the holidays and spring, and we would love to invite local artists who are interested in helping us create new designs. If you\u2019re an artist who\u2019d like to work with us, please email design@powells.com.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Thank you for your passion and for helping keep Powell\u2019s independent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KPTV-KPDX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) &#8211; Portland\u2019s most iconic bookstore, Powell\u2019s Books, addressed criticism Saturday after customers and workers realized&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[14406,182,181,39180,223,6944,74146,88,86646,53712,40563,7971],"class_list":["post-138748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-adobe","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-backlash","tag-books","tag-bookstore","tag-criticism","tag-entertainment","tag-ilwu-local-5","tag-merch","tag-merchandise","tag-powells-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}