05/28/2026
Couldn’t agree more with this post. We have taken this same stance at the Grafton Art Gallery.
We support human artists and we will never use AI generated content, written or visual, for our posts or advertisements.
Something has been sitting heavy lately, and it's time to address it. Recently, the digital world has been absolutely flooded with full-blown AI-generated images. We're not talking about some esthetic editing... we're talking about food that doesn’t even exist in real life, landscapes that defy reality, and environments that don't even reflect the actual establishments. 🥺
To us, that’s not marketing... it’s a big step toward false advertising. Even more concerning is the massive environmental toll this technology takes on our water and energy resources.
As a river town, we live by the water. We are the stewards of the Mississippi and the Illinois. To ignore the impact of these tools on our natural resources would be a disservice to the very land we invite you to experience.
Here is our current pledge:
1.) Authentic Only: From this day forward, Enjoy Grafton, IL commits to using only real photography and human-led design. If you see a sunset on our page, a local photographer captured it. If you see a plate of food, a local chef cooked it. While we cannot control the individual marketing materials or AI usage of independent business or clients in the region, we promise that the images we create will always hold to our core values.
2.) Quality over Quantity: We might not post ten times a day and we sure won’t flood your feed with artificial noise. We choose to share meaningful, real life moments and content that reflect the heart of our town. We're a small business promoting a small town. We aren't perfect, and we’ll make mistakes, but they will be our mistakes...not a computer’s.
Grafton is real. The breeze is real. The history is real. We'll leave the AI for curing cancer and promise to keep our marketing just as genuine as the town we call home.
See you on the river.
