How AI art killed an indie book cover contest

[ZodWallop]

Here's an article that come up today: How AI art killed an indie book cover contest

So there was a contest to create a cover for the indie book Bob the Wizard. The rules stipulated no use of AI tools. The award-winning cover by an artist named Sean Mauss (attachment below) was immediately placed under suspicion of being at least partly manipulated by AI tools. Some internet sleuthing proved it. The author is now working with a different artist to replace the cover.

Bob the Wizard’s cover was a hit. In May, it won the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) cover contest, an annual competition run by author Mark Lawrence that highlights indie authors in the fantasy genre. But the victory didn’t last long. The same day the winner was announced, readers and fans on Twitter were questioning whether the art was created at least in part using AI tools. The incident highlighted a growing crisis of trust in science fiction and fantasy publishing: in a world where AI-generated media is common, do you know the work you’re looking at was made by a human?

Things are a little messy right now. But reading though the article, I can't be mad at how the artist generated their award-winning cover. It's not like he just went to Dall-E, threw in a few prompts and posted what came out.

It reminds me of back when Tron wasn't even considered in the Oscar nominations for best visual effects, because the Academy felt that the use of computers was in some way cheating.

I can understand magazines placing bans on AI-generated stories. I could understand a contest banning completely AI generated images. But insisting there be absolutely no AI involvement in imagine generation feels a little Luddite to me. There are ways to use these tools that are unique and creative. I think the cover looks great.

[John F]

Interesting that a cover that used AI tools won the contest.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I can understand magazines placing bans on AI-generated stories. I could understand a contest banning completely AI generated images. But insisting there be absolutely no AI involvement in imagine generation feels a little Luddite to me. There are ways to use these tools that are unique and creative. I think the cover looks great.

Because it's not created, but a composite of many images scraped from the internet that were created by humans.

AI art is at worst pure plagiarism and at best a lie.

There is no shortage at all of too cheap decent human artists.


Also the Luddites have a bad press. They didn't object to machines, but worse pay and conditions while the mill owners made 100x to 1000x profit compared to paying workers at home on their own loom.

And the anti-AI sentiment is also not about anti-machine (or computers) but exploitation of human created content with no payment at all by massive corporations. There is also a massive environmental cost with such "advanced" AI as used in LLM and image generation. A so-called "AI plug-in" filter in a digital image editing / drawing package isn't the issue.

[arjaybe]

Should a photographer be allowed to take credit for a picture created by a camera? How about a camera that makes automatic adjustments to improve the image? Or a camera that combines three images to create a better one? What if the photographer takes a picture of something made by another person, or many other people, like a cityscape? Should they be able to take credit for it, or do they need to make sure the credit is fairly distributed, and maybe paid for? It's a slippery slope when we let machines create art.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Should a photographer be allowed to take credit for a picture created by a camera? How about a camera that makes automatic adjustments to improve the image? Or a camera that combines three images to create a better one?

That question was settled over 150 years ago. Those are tools and the photographer, (or movie maker) sets up the shot, even if it's an automated photo triggered by a noise, light or a moving animal.
HDR and related by combining images is just a tool.

Even image processing "plug-in" filters are just tools, like dark room dodging, or printing an image the size of a wall, and editing with paint, then re-photographing.
AI generated images are using at the input images mad by other unknown humans processed without any acknowledgement of the multiple sources.

Photography with images that could be preserved is about 190 years old. The idea of it and experiments are much older. Certainly some famous "old masters" used the Camera Obscura principle to project the scene to a flat surface. But they created the scene and framing of it, just as digital photographers and movie makers do today. The point is that AI images is a lie. They are not made from scratch by "clever" programming. They totally rely on other images, usually copied without permission, citing of source or anything. AI is fundamentally a lie. There is no real AI.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography

[DiapDealer]

I'm not chuffed at all. It will all shake out and our descendents will wonder why there was ever a brouhaha in the first place. But chicken-littling before (and during) paradigm shifts seems to be somewhat instinctual to humans.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm not chuffed at all. It will all shake out and our descendents will wonder why there was ever a brouhaha in the first place. But chicken-littling before (and during) paradigm shifts seems to be somewhat instinctual to humans.

Are you sure that you are using the commonly accepted meaning of chuffed?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Are you sure that you are using the commonly accepted meaning of chuffed?

Not sure at all. I don't always pay close attention to commonly accepted meanings. I am using it in its original military slang meaning (according to the OED). To be displeased or disgruntled.

My point is that I don't care how art might be created. I only care if looking at it; listening to it; reading it is a pleasant (or edifying) experience for me.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not sure at all. I don't always pay close attention to commonly accepted meanings. I am using it in its original military slang meaning (according to the OED). To be displeased or disgruntled.

So, yet another word in english whose meaning has inverted.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

So, yet another word in english whose meaning has inverted.

Last time I looked, as British army slang, chuffed had two meanings in pleased and displeased. You have to infer from context/tone/whatever which meaning is meant.

So "my fiancee was chuffed to see me" could mean either she was pleased or displeased to see me. And they wonder why I prefer computers...

[ownedbycats]

I thought the future was supposed to be robots doing the boring/dangerous jobs so that us squishy humans can work on the arts.

Instead, the robots are the ones doing painting and poetry. Probably because it makes rich people more money.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Probably because it makes rich people more money.

You think the artist who won the indie book cover contest with the help of AI tools (and, no, I don't care if it's not actually "intelligence") is a rich person?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Because it's not created, but a composite of many images scraped from the internet that were created by humans.

AI art is at worst pure plagiarism and at best a lie.

Oh blah, blah, blah. You say that every time AI comes up and it is tiresome.

The AI models do scan and learn from what exists, but it's not like it takes that and spits out an image of Gainesborough's Blue Boy with Mona Lisa's hair pasted on top.

Star Wars is an amalgamation of Flash Gordon and Dune. Everything is based is based on or influenced by something else.

There is no shortage at all of too cheap decent human artists.

And as mentioned, not terribly long ago, using a computer meant it wasn't 'true' art. Using Photoshop is a cheat. Whenever something new and powerful comes along, people that use those tools are seen as 'less'

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Instead, the robots are the ones doing painting and poetry. Probably because it makes rich people more money.

Look, let's get together, you, I and Sean Mauss (the artist that created the cover in question). Give all three of us the same tools, some assignment and three days and let's see what each of us produces. Human involvement and talent matters.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

And as mentioned, not terribly long ago, using a computer meant it wasn't 'true' art. Using Photoshop is a cheat. Whenever something new and powerful comes along, people that use those tools are seen as 'less'

I've never written that.

Don't conflate tools, even ones using AI as branding, and these ecologically damaging AI enabled by content scraped of the internet.

It's not the same as humans inspired by other humans.