BiasMedium
City of Spokane Reportedly Distributed Purported AI-Generated Clocktower Flyer Resembling Graphic Designer Matthew Clinard's Artwork
- Occurred
- Jul 1, 2026
- Published
- Jul 20, 2026
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
A Spokane Parks and Recreation employee reportedly used a purported generative AI image tool to create a flyer promoting the restored Great Northern Clocktower chimes. The flyer reportedly reproduced elements of artist Matthew Clinard's commercially sold Clocktower sticker and was distributed by the mayor's office without the city-required AI disclosure. After Clinard complained publicly, the city removed the image and apologized, then began considering AI-policy and employee-training reforms.
Developers
- Synthetic media generation technology developers
- Synthetic image generation technology developers
Deployers
- Unnamed employee of Spokane Parks and Recreation Department
- Synthetic media creators
- Spokane Parks and Recreation Department
- City of Spokane
- Office of Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown
Harmed parties
- Matthew Clinard
- Epistemic integrity
- artists
- Copyright holders
- General public
- General public of Spokane
Classification
Category confidence: 60%
Severity confidence: 80%
Rationale: Incident involves AI-generated content infringing on artist's work without disclosure, but lacks clear bias or discrimination focus.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8