Are AI art book covers a no-go for you? This GPT designs book covers, but sparks a heated debate.
This post was banned from my writing group. Read why.
Heated debate in writer community against AI art
People tore into a member of a Facebook group I’m in after she asked about AI book cover images. Within 5 hours, her post amassed 234 comments, most of them critical, many of them vicious, and she’d turned off commenting and gone into hiding on Facebook. What is it about AI that makes anti-AI people — who uphold being humane as the sine qua non — go into Terminator-mode and show so little empathy to the feelings of others?
Anyway, I felt quite sympathetic towards her, so I built a Custom GPT to do exactly what she asked. It interviews authors about their books, their ideal readership, themes and motifs, and what ambience they want the cover to project, and then designs a cover image. Mainly I see it being used to make mockups, or as visual aids to imagine what the final cover might look like.
If you’re interested, you’re welcome to experiment with it. You’ll need a ChatGPT Plus subscription to access the catalogue, but my GPT is free:
Video Explainer of the Book Cover Illustrator GPT:
The Book Cover Illustrator GPT in action.
Let’s have a sample conversation with the GPT to see how it works:
Author: Hi there, I’m an author looking to create a book cover for my latest novel. It’s a science fiction story set in a distant future where humanity lives under the ocean.
Book Cover Illustrator GPT: Hello! I’d be thrilled to help you with your book cover. To start, could you tell me a bit more about the main themes and elements of your story?
Author: Sure! The story focuses on a young woman who discovers an ancient secret about the underwater city she lives in, which could change the fate of humanity. Themes include discovery, adventure, and the mystery of the unknown.
Book Cover Illustrator GPT: That sounds fascinating! Who is your target audience for this book?
Author: My target audience is young adults, ages 15–25, who enjoy speculative fiction and stories about exploration and self-discovery.
Cover Illustrator: Great, that helps a lot. Are there any specific symbols, colors, or imagery you imagine being part of the cover?
Author: I’m thinking of something that captures the vastness of the ocean with a sense of mystery. Maybe a silhouette of the city under the waves, with a hint of an ancient structure in the background. As for colors, I like the idea of deep blues and teals.
Book Cover Illustrator GPT: Perfect, I have a clear idea now. Let’s create a cover that features an expansive underwater cityscape, with a focus on deep oceanic blues and teals, and a subtle ancient structure in the background to hint at the hidden secrets of your story.
What can you do with an AI generated cover image?
With a little bit of Photoshop, I could see that as a book cover. Because it uses Dall-E 3, the images aren’t a print-ready resolution; you’d need to use an upscaler at least (I recommend Topaz AI). Or, you could take the image to a human cover designer to show what you want. AI is a great way to visualize your book cover before committing to a final design. Even designers could use it as a rough proof of concept before embarking on a new commission.
There are also questions surrounding whether you can copyright an image, so you might not be protected. But, respectfully, who’s going to steal your book cover? Especially when they are that easy to produce. Once you’ve emblazoned it with your title and author’s name (which may be enough to make the work ‘transformative’ and copyrightable anyway), it’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth for a pirate to edit all that out and start over.
Ironically, the ease with which AI allows us to generate previously unseen images could spell the end for plagiarism, or at least render it obsolete. The democratization of AI means that creating art is more accessible than ever; and the widespread availability of these tools transforms the act of copying into an unnecessary endeavor. There’s no need to copy existing works. As the motivation to plagiarize diminishes, it steers the community towards a future where authenticity and originality are the norm, not the exception.
Dangerous words: AI art upsets writers’ group
I tried to post about this in the group, but was reprimanded by moderators. I appreciate it’s a contentious topic, so I’m choosing to believe the post was banned to allow things to cool off in the group, rather than censorship. But Medium has never shied away from intellectual debate, so I decided to rework my post as an article for you, as well as to show you all the GPT.
Addressing writers’ misconceptions and fears about AI art
As to the complaints that I’m doubtless going to get for offering this, let me get ahead on two points. AI doesn’t copy or steal art, because nothing is kept or stored. In some ways, Google image search is far more intrusive. And the amount of data ingested by AI from any one artist is about the same as in a single tweet. It’s on the magnitude of a byte per image. An entire portfolio could be contained in less than a tweet. There isn’t a clone of cover artist Greg Rutkowski contained in the AI aether somewhere; it’s how his work relates to other artists, styles, artworks, in a dynamic mindmap (sorta like the Global Network of Discovery). Any one artist’s contribution is minimal.
Like, really truly miniscule. A drop of painter’s ink in the ocean. About the same as any single artist’s contribution to the whole history of art itself in the real world. Instead, it’s all relational machine learning. It’s a sobering reality, but any style can be summed up in a few data points. The idea that AI ‘copy/traces’ is technologically unsound, as is the idea that it’s a collage.
There is a phenomena called overtraining, which is why you might see exact images cropping up (and being used as evidence of copying). In layman’s terms, the best way I can describe this is when visual culture is so suffused with one image of something, the image becomes the object itself. (Overtraining is perhaps a perfect example of Baudrillard’s “Hyperreality”).
For instance, the Mona Lisa — is it a picture of Mona Lisa, or is it the piece known as Mona Lisa? The same applies to popular culture. Think of it this way: if I say “Mrs Doubtfire” to you, do you instantly congure up a mental image that resembles the ubiquitous posters of the movie in the 90s? I do. That’s how machine learning works, and why overtraining happens. It’s not pirating an image; it’s that the image has become a visual referent of itself.
AI cover art doesn’t mean the end of human artists
The second point I want to make is that AI art doesn’t have to put artists out of business. If you can’t describe the exact cover you want (maybe you don’t think in visual terms) AI can be a tool to bridge the gap between your cover concept and its realization. It allows authors, especially those who might have aphantasia, to experiment with concepts and aesthetics that they might struggle to articulate. This process can inspire and inform human artists, who then can refine these ideas into something uniquely personal.
This isn’t a zero-sum game; it’s an expansion of the market, offering new opportunities and choices for both authors and readers. An author resorting to AI art for a final book cover is probably not a “lost client”. You’re not losing money if a client can’t pay. They were never a prospect.
And for authors: their book is not in competition with yours. I predict that we’ll see a divide like the old dime paperbacks from traditional publishing. The AI-designed books will cater to a different niche, one that’s more open to technological integration (and perhaps interactive/personalized) fiction.
You CAN judge a book by its AI cover
Finally, the use of AI-generated art for book covers can serve as a clear signal to potential readers about the author’s stance on AI technology. Those who are open to or curious about AI will be drawn to these covers; conversely, those who prefer traditional methods might know to steer clear.
If the Anti-AI authors want to see AI ‘outed’ in publishing, letting those who do want to use AI cover images use it is the surest way to differentiate how authors align themselves. It’s a cultural statement in the first thing a reader sees. As my readers know, I proudly and transparently use AI art in all my articles as a marker of my views on modern tech. If I publish an ebook, I’ll continue to do the same. And in the realm of self-publishing, an AI cover could be a unique selling point, setting a book apart in a crowded market.
Picture this: Understanding the stories behind AI art
As I wrote in my redacted Facebook post: AI exists. My GPT works. Use it, or don’t. People are free to make their own decisions, and you never know their whole story. Not everybody can afford commissioned art; or perhaps it was for a non-profit book that the OP was only going to distribute to her friends. There are lots of different backstories going on in people’s lives; as writers, we should be willing to give the benefit of the doubt, and be kind.
Speaking for myself, I live with an acquired language disorder following a hate crime attack in 2015. LLMs literally gave me my career back. I use AI assisted technology to bridge communication difficulties. I’m passionate about seeing AI used well, and helping others understand AI can be good.
Reading the room:
Well that’s my take on the AI book cover art debacle. But this discussion is far from over, and your perspective is invaluable. What do you think about using AI for book covers? Is it a groundbreaking tool for creativity, or does it cross ethical boundaries? Do you believe AI art will complement or conflict with traditional artistic methods? Let’s chat in the comments.
Who is Jim the AI Whisperer?
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