A Warning is Not a Threat; Indie Editor Encouraging AI Book Covers is WRONG

[@VaughanFarrar]

As an artist (not ai) who's trying to get into the writing space ...which lane does she want me to stay in and can I get away with car pooling with myself?

[@AJadedLizard]

30:01 I found my favorite author, Naomi Novik, because I saw a copy of her book Black Powder War, on a restocking shelf at my high school's library fifteen years ago. The cover was a medallion in the shape of a dragon, with a Napoleonic-era cannon inset. I'd never read anything that blended a high fantasy trope, like dragons, with more modern levels of technology, so the concept intrigued me, I found her first book on a shelf nearby, and have been a huge fan of her books ever since. The cover art she chose is *exactly* why I picked the book up, it's absurd to suggest covers don't attract readers. If that weren't true cover art wouldn't matter and you wouldn't need to slop together an AI cover, because the time invested wouldn't matter.

[@ovenbird1253]

Covers are so important for conveying the vibe of the story! If I hate the cover I’m way less likely to pick up the book. I never picked up the lunar chronicles for years because the original covers had made the books seem like something I wouldn’t like. When the new covers came out I decided to actually pick it up and realized I love the story and that the new covers are way better at conveying the vibes of the story than the old ones were.

[@spookyfirst9514]

I have to say my favorite video title you've done has to be: "Likelihood of Getting Someone Pregnant While Using Them as a Chair."

[@n.r.tupperauthor6573]

I actually had to stop hanging out in writer groups... They're all so horribly self obsessed. Their book is a special thing because THEY worked SO hard on it... and 1 star reviews? Critiques? ACTUALLY EDITING THEIR WORK? That's just INSULTING. They worked SO HARD ON IT. People should just take it exactly as it is and love it because it has their blood, sweat and TEARS in it. ARGH. So, I thankfully avoided all of this... but then YOU HAD TO POST IT. hahahahaha. Dang it. Oh well. I love your work and your videos and it's one of the last writer-adjacent spaces I feel comfortable in so here I am. But I gotta admit... I enjoyed the video. It made me angry on many levels but it was good.

[@TheRQpaints]

According to the US government AI created work cannot be copyrighted. There is a way to do it, but certain changes need to be made by a human to get the copyright. So what's to stop a shady author from using the same cover of a popular book with an AI-generated cover to fool readers?

[@sunla]

I don't judge a book by its cover. Oh wait no, that's people. I don't judge people by what they look like. Books are fair game, especially if they use AI covers. Not only will I pass on it, I'll be disgusted, too. People who do this won't get a dime from me.

[@sunla]

I went into the aiwars subreddit. Huge mistake. It's actually a few AI bros and their dozens of alts. And they all echo the same cruel sentiments as this lady.

[@zykzi]

she is not understanding that no shlt iI am going to skip your book if it has an AI cover, because those who indulge in AI are often those with bad taste, why would your book contents be any better 🤷‍♀

[@RaccoonLaundry]

It's just so wild to me that some people think they DESERVE to make a product AND get paid for it. You don't get to be mad at the customers that don't like what you're selling. It's like a game developer taking music from other games, getting caught, and then complaining about the backlash on Twitter. "I'm bad at music, and I couldn't afford to pay someone, what was I supposed to do? Try harder and learn an additional skill myself?" Great video! I just discovered your channel. Insta-sub :)

[@PBJT292]

Your dog jingling in the background set me on a 10 minute long search for the source of the noise in my home, lol…..I disturbed my sleeping cat by checking what she was doing repeatedly…i can see her doubts of my intelligence reflected in her eyes now.

[@spookyfirst9514]

🤣 Edit to add: It brings up memories of my late grey cat. One of her favorite things was dragging an old ankle bell down the stairs.

[@M.M.Morris]

when i’ve done videos with her before, hearing Tate’s jingle always gets me to look around my room, too.

[@mzcyberbat]

Gosh, this brings back memories of my old ginger boy too ❤

[@heybearnation]

It's funny how using AI for covers and such isn't seen as another form of entitlement. People WANT x thing, but they can't afford it. And instead of working for it, making sacrifices and changes in their life to manage to afford it, they just use AI. I'm sorry, but you're not entitled to an amazing book cover. Many of us save for months to afford that $500 cover you desperately want as well. In general, I've noticed that in the self-publishing author community, many many people think nothing should cost money. They think they should be able to get or do everything for free or EXTREMELY cheap, yet be of high quality. I imagen that because writing is relatively cheap/free, then they don't understand why they need to pay editors, illustrators, etc. "I can just do it myself!!" They're entrepreneurs who don't understand that you have to invest time and MONEY (not go into debt, just save up) into a business venture.

[@amerrywolf]

I was on the fence about AI art until I started watching your videos; I agree with the points you've made in this video and in past videos and am very much against AI art now.

[@Grumbless]

How does this woman not know that buying books due to cover is super common. I skim read the blurb at best. Cover is key and I have read over 600 books since she assumes such people don't read much. I avoid books for the very same reason. You don't click or pick up a book for the blurb you cant see until you pick it up now do you! Edit: I can't believe she just contradicted herself. She is fully aware that covers are important but she is telling people to use AI covers. Something many many readers are against. Is she trying to sabotage her audience as well as steal from artists? She's just an all round bad person huh

[@beaverson]

I love your videos so much, and I love lessening to them as I draw.🙂🎨 That lady seemed so hateful towards Illustrators, though..😬 It's hard to believe there are people in the world like that, God damn. Lol

[@Grumbless]

I will not read books with AI covers... You don't even need to hire someone. You can make your own. If you can't put a little effort into even doing that, something I did with zero drawing or photoshop skills what so ever, why the hell would I bother with the content.

[@smjaiteh]

If you think so little about the story you’re writing that you don’t even want to hire an artist to make the best cover possible, you’re not worth reading. Books cost time, and an txt2img AI generated cover where you can’t even be bothered to think up the composition tells me to spend mine somewhere else. It’s that simple.

[@thorbad]

Can someone explain to me why all these AI people talk like they have swallowed a machine gun? It's so painful to listen to their permanent attempts, to overtake themselves ...

[@mikedesousa4040]

This AI stuff is getting nastier and nastier. In the end, I think it's going to be the beginner writers and as you've define "gig writers" that'll get hurt the most. I think there's a big mess coming our way and anyone who doesn't love writing for its own sake will likely drop out. Over at Author Nation, i saw a video where a guest was saying that we've come to the point where authors can put their entire back list into AI and generate new and original books in their style within minutes, then after editing and all the administrative work, they can supply their readers with a new book twice a week (or quicker if they can iron out their processes). Besides the big questions of "what's the point of being a writer then?" or "how will that damage an author's rep with their readers?" One big problem is: this will saturate the market. One of the benefits writers have is that it takes much longer to write a book then to read it, so market saturation is less of an issue but very soon, there will be big authors pumping out 10-15 books a month, all legit, all in their style. And the business pressure to keep up with the competition and not lose readers will push more and more established authors to adapt the "super-mass-production approach." But this will make visibility for new authors near impossible and crater book prices. Booktube has a hard enough time keeping up now with book reviews, what will they do once the likes of GRRM begin pumping ASOIF books twice month? So, I think it'll be beginner writers trying to get noticed and gig writers trying to make a living who will be hurt the most. One will be discouraged, the other will lose their income. Those who see themselves as writers-first will likely be okay in the very long run, and may, with their personality and personal writing style carve out a long-term sustainable readership. Because I believe the coming market mess will cause many, MANY writers to quit, and if you make it through storm, you might find a wide open space.

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

It's gonna make an absolute MESS out of copyright, since AI "art" isn't copyrightable. That's already been settled. At least until some big IP rights holder realizes that it means they won't get the rights to IP that are develped with AI. THEN things will change and they'll either stop buying AI projects OR make them fully copyrightable, then fire all their human creatives.

[@SugarThyme]

One thing is, though, if an author started pumping out a book every two weeks, I know I would become suspicious of that pretty fast. What is the probability that their quality is above a 2/10? The generators don't understand what they're making, and two weeks or some other short period isn't nearly enough to edit slop into quality work. They'd probably lose readers pretty fast. I wouldn't even bother picking up the book of an author like that because who even has that much time?

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

@@SugarThyme Reality TV would tend to disprove your point. People consume low quality media all the time b/c end-stage capitalism's pressures leave them with no bandwidth to spare on thinking at the end of the day. They just want to turn their brains off and mindlessly consume.

[@m1hfn2f]

Re: the comments, you are right, people who agreed with her did admit they're in it for the money. most of them though, had some sort of sad stories like "i had covid, lost my savings" etc. not to shit on them but get a job? most artists (like you mentioned in another video) have one or more jobs and their art is largely from their passions. that's what makes great art anyway, the drive to make art and express yourself. it's obvious a LOT of people pick up writing simply because it's one of the most accessible ways to make money (all you need is a laptop), so i'm not sure why she's acting like she's championing the underdog. Also artists spend a lot of time and MONEY to hone their craft, so they shouldn't be compensated, it's just the writers who deserve money?

[@M.M.Morris]

She’s acting like she’s rooting for the underdog, but if you listen and watch her… the actions and the language totally suggest she isn’t. I think she’s trying to court a specific type of audience but ultimately she’ll shoot herself in the foot doing that. Anyone who uses a.i is always in it for the money. They can’t even hide it either. they can say that’s not true but, lol, talks cheap

[@anastasialipatova4798]

What I find interesting is that she uses that argument about generated text being "soulless" (which is a bad argument IMO because lots of people do not believe in the existance of souls to begin with) yet does not apply it to visual art. So according to her, "soulless" images are totally fine but "soulless" books are not.

[@TheRQpaints]

We artists who have an issue with AI see AI as theft because there are copyright laws that protect our art. That is why this issue is in the courts and being discussed by governments. Big Tech is trying to redefine copyright laws and most AI-bros are calling for the laws to be erased. It's a shame the courts and governments are moving slowly on these issues. The longer this process takes, the more it looks like artists will lose, there is big money behind AI success. This issue must be decided by laws because one side has decided they do not care about ethics.

[@raccoon9469]

I have no problem with writing as a product in concept. As far as ghost writing goes, I really dislike when people are commissioned to write a story by disinterested or uninvolved parties who then publish the work simply to return a profit. What I can appreciate are people who recognize their limitations but still have a story they really want to tell, so they commission a ghost writer to help them bring their story to life. It's basically the same as commissioning a piece of art. I don't have the skill nor the time to dedicate to learning the skill, so I'll trade some money or labor to someone who already has the skill to bring my vision to life. In my eyes, it doesn't make the art any less impactful or impressive nor diminish the level of passion someone has for it as the commissioner. Trend chasers annoy me as a whole, but I guess I can see how some trend readers might like it if they find a trend writer who's work they enjoy and they can be assured that author will put out a book along with whatever the newest trends are for them to read. I just don't like them personally because my taste in books have remained pretty steady over the years. I like character focused high fantasy and some sci-fi. When Game of Thrones first blew up, the fantasy market was absolutely flooded by trend chasers and it was difficult finding new books that weren't soulless cash grab thrones clones by mediocre authors who had contracts with publishers to pump out trendy books. Obviously those books will lack the soul of someone who is really invested in a book/characters/world; when written by a competent and creative storyteller they can be decent fill in reads between the stuff you're looking forward to, though. One thing writing as a whole suffers from is its accessibility. Its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Anyone can pick up a pen and start writing, even if it's absolute rubbish. They google going rates on editing and ghost writing and market themselves as editors and ghost writers at heavily inflated rates that in no way reflect their skill level. Pretty soon there's such a crush of mediocre gig writers who make it near impossible for really great editors and writers to get past. With the advent of generative AI the number of trash gig writers (and visual artists, don't get me wrong) have skyrocketed. This whole AI assisted thing is absolute obscene and this editor should be ashamed that she even offers it. If I wanted AI to tell me how to fix my story, I would just use it myself. If I'm coming to an editor, it means I want THAT EDITOR to EDIT. The fact that someone has even touched AI and tried to market it tells me that nothing of theirs is to be trusted or valued beyond the going rate for AI slop; which is approximately nothing. I say all this as an indy goober with no claim to fame and no desire to go be a gig writer. I'll tell my own stories at my leisure and I know in the end that even if I'm not as good as some gig writers, at least I love my stories more than they could ever care about the words they jot down for someone else.

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

They have a way in film/tv to deal with that. The "Story by" credit.

[@M.M.Morris]

The Irony of her stance is that she claims to be defending indies while she is 1: Willfully ignoring the fact this is directly and negatively effecting Indies. OR 2: she knows this and is trying to court a specific audience for more profit but in doing that she has alienated the bulk of everyone on this community. Authors AND readers alike. There is already tension between Readers and Authors, this has made it worse. Readers aren’t stupid, and this mindset is actually saying to them that they are stupid. it’s very condescending and presumptuous to assume readers won’t care about an a.i cover. They will and Do. because if you use a.i for a cover then to me that tells me that if they were too negligent to pay an artist for a cover, then what’s to say the book also isn’t a.i generated. She’s relegated readers to being mindless neanderthals who just consume consume consume without abandon. those types of readers aren’t the types who stick around because they aren’t reading your work for you, they’re reading a product that’s going to give them what they want and if you can’t deliver that then they will go to someone else who does it better.

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

Some of the peole in her comments have their noses so high up in the air about "indie authors" just looking for exposure that it's f-ing ridiculous.

[@hollowatelier]

Thank you for the video. It's wild how some of these people have so little respect for the creative process. It's not just the finished piece that matters!

[@m1hfn2f]

halfway through the video and one thing that is just astounding to me is how sassy she is about this topic and not even presenting her side properly with logic. if i was a writer i'd think 5 times before giving my money away to someone with this lack of professionalism (I mean she edits with AI so not much professionalism to begin with but come on) edit: what you said at near the end about books being a collaborative effort is correct and also what trad publishers value, i think. i'm part of a community supported by a trad publisher and a lot of the time we have to give our opinions on potential book releases where they gauge our opinions on different blurbs, different covers, different titles etc. her being so dismissive of the publishing and marketing effort just tells me she's someone who's very incompetent at her job

[@wyrmlight1168]

I think part of what's so ridiculous about this whole situation is that she claims that a) people don't buy books based on covers, b) people buy books based only on the written blurbs, and c) somehow despite this, you should still get a good-looking cover. Following these arguments, according to her logic, she shouldn't even have a cover on her book at all. And yet she's still very vocal about her assertion that she shouldn't be judged either by readers or writers for using AI image generation to make a cover for her based on a dataset that's stolen from thousands of artists. She's one of those exercises in contradictions that refuses to acknowledge itself. She already knows what she wants to believe and she isn't planning on changing her mind, because changing her mind displaces her victimized mentality. It's just the same argument we've seen a million times before on the internet in a different font. Goddamn.

[@AJadedLizard]

I'm also trying to imagine calling myself a writer and then paying someone else to write the blurb for my book. That's like being a commission artist and then paying another artist to make your PFP and example images. If I can't even adequately describe my own work in a way that makes it compelling, why the fuck would you expect me to be able to actually make compelling work? What a joke.

[@SugarThyme]

I'm the one who brought this up to you because I was surprised to see the video. I lean more into educational or game/show stuff on my channel, so I didn't want to get too much into it in my videos. But I will say: for prices, I put up an ad just recently and have professionals offering to work for me, a nobody, for extremely fair prices. Extremely well-done renders for under $100. I tend to tip artists a fair amount because they're not charging enough most of the time. I don't consider them unaffordable unless you're looking at the 1%-ish that have the super high prices (and if they pull those numbers, good for them!) Second: Since I've been making a fair amount of Megamind stuff lately... She talks about how human and machine learning are the same. They're not. If I ask an image generator to give me Lex Luthor, it'll show me pictures of Lex Luthor that look like pictures that have already been drawn of him before (because they'll probably be taken straight from previous works of him). If a human is inspired by Lex Luthor, you get Megamind. You will never give an "AI" a prompt of Lex Luthor and have it creatively give you something like Megamind. We have not duplicated millions of years of evolution just yet. Not even close. I have such a weird position in this whole thing. Being a writer myself, being an editor, having hired editors, etc. And have even hired the Nonsense-Free Editor before. I have experience with almost everything talked about here save for being a professional artist!

[@SugarThyme]

Also, speaking of "what makes readers buy the book," she says it's the blurb, you say it's the cover... I have a bit of interesting info on that. I work on light novels. Anyone who reads light novels might notice something funny about them: the extremely long titles. "I'm A Behemoth, An S-Ranked Monster, But Mistaken For A Cat, I Live As An Elf Girl's Pet" "The Results From When I Time Leaped To My Second Year Of High School And Confessed To The Teacher I Liked At The Time" "The Invisible Wallflower Marries an Upstart Aristocrat After Getting Dumped for Her Sister!" "A Surprisingly Happy Engagement for the Slime Duke and the Fallen Noble Lady" "I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, So I Might as Well Try Mastering Magic" There are so many like this. Go to any light novel publisher and most titles are extremely long. So, why is that? Well, they noticed that people WEREN'T reading the blurbs. People had to market their work, but there were so many to read that people were just skimming across titles and covers quickly and that was it. So, the titles BECAME the blurb. You may notice each title states what's in the book. I would say that leans towards, "People look at the cover and the title to decide what to buy". That doesn't mean no one reads the blurb, but clearly not enough people reading LNs were (about equivalent to the English YA market). It is kind of funny what they decided to do to solve that, though (enough that someone made a book with a title that was 196 pages long poking fun at the trend).

[@TaikenUchida41]

@@SugarThyme How funny XD 196... *_...pages...?!_* They literally made the title the book itself. (Also, hi again!)

[@SugarThyme]

@@TaikenUchida41 Yup, that's exactly what they did! Last I heard about it, they were making a series for it, too. But the entire show was going to be the intro song.

[@TaikenUchida41]

@@SugarThyme And if it becomes a game, the world is the title screen.

[@SugarThyme]

@@TaikenUchida41 Perfect.

[@holedplot]

Unreal. BTW, there's AI editors being promoted on twitter adds right now. People like this spend too much time spitting venom around to notice the gunk propelled right over their heads, and when you try to warn them, it's too late. Hard to believe she's even an adult. Baffling.

[@AJadedLizard]

28:49 What, do you think you're some kind of Jedi, wavin' your hand around like that?

[@spookyfirst9514]

I did find out that there are already Trad Pub Houses that use AI for covers. Authors contracting with them have no choice in what the covers look like. I think that's just a factor to keep in mind in sending out query letters to them.

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

Name 'em and Shame 'em.

[@spookyfirst9514]

@@GregPrice-ep2dk Tor is the only one I know does for certain.

[@iisbobby3523]

"Ai Democratizes art." WTF! Are these people smoking.

[@M.M.Morris]

They say this and yet there are tons and free tutorials on youtube, on the internet, on pinterest. for color theory, anatomy, specific styles of art, values, rendering tutorials, free info and valuable insider information based on the industry vets who worked in that fields Also, if you want more in depth things and want to pay for a course, Udemy has courses that are usually never more then 20 dollars. it wasn’t A.I that democratized art it was artists who did that.

[@spookyfirst9514]

35:54 This was the exact spot I stopped watching her video. I went to her page and found everything behind a paywall. She must have gotten some blow back from this, because she's decided to put one of her books on redditt for free. The chances of it being scraped off are certain. Will she care? Time will tell.

[@carultch]

To me, the cover image isn't just the incentive to select the book, it's also an "Easter egg hunt" I play when reading the book. It's an "Easter Egg hunt" to find what scene in the book the cover represents, and an anticipation to imagine how the author felt it was important to the story.

[@MissShembre]

I'm a commission artist (though I don't do covers.) I think the ONLY reason I'd work with a writer who had AI covers is if they were redoing their backlist and upgrading to legit art covers. I'd probably also do a close reading of their writing to try and sus out if they were leaning heavily/all the way on AI writing, too.

[@TheGone-bj1bf]

Everything these people make with AI goes into its training data. If AI becomes accepted once the technology is perfected what make it’s supporters think they will still have access to it. Then all the companies that own it can just use it to undercut everyone themselves

[@spookyfirst9514]

"Know your role, and stay in your lane." How to tank your profit margin in one sentence.

[@M.M.Morris]

i like that she says that… while simultaneously driving recklessly into everyone else’s lane.

[@spookyfirst9514]

@@M.M.Morris back in the stone age, I was watching Johnny Carson late at night. His two guests were Steve Martin and Gallagher. The whole night, Gallagher picked on Martin. Pick pick pick. Finally, Steve stared him in the eye and said "What a sad end to a wonderful career." Everyone laughed, even Gallagher. But that sentence did tank his career, because he chose to be an asshole instead of a guest. This 'ma'am' is a prime example.

[@vanyavanilla7108]

Ian, there is nothing you can do to stop me from rebranding to “VanyaDaPuppyKicker”.

[@spookyfirst9514]

🤣

[@AJadedLizard]

"Sperging" is a slur aimed at people with Asperger's, so...that's fun.

[@m1hfn2f]

it's liberally used in 4chan and similar imageboards so that just tells me she's an edgelord who uses these sites too much and now cannot help treating her profession as some internet slapfight

[@chaosvii]

Huge fan of the ludicrously false analogy regarding authors who pay money for cover art _Surgeons who deliberately refuse to wash their hands were inevitably going to be replaced by those that wash their hands._ Because obviously paying money as a matter of principle & reputation causes a literary/business “hygiene hazard”somehow. Even if this nonsense was a real problem that sincerely caused the data aggregation & indirect-theft-tools to be a superior industry standard, it still would be utterly disconnected from all the other complaints being put forward about taboos & valuing labor & resenting social media reactions.

[@TheMelMan]

It will not please you to know that I have received 2 A.I. ads within the first 7 minutes of this video.

[@spookyfirst9514]

Sooooo, I'm not the only one?😂

[@TheMelMan]

@@spookyfirst9514 You too? I let the ad play so their money can be spent. lol. I do that for any scammer ads that pop up. I mute and let them play to the end.

[@AJadedLizard]

So much of her argument just boils down to a spluttered "Well, you just can't win if you don't cheat!" to which I reply, well, then, you shouldn't play. If you can't "write" or "paint" without having a machine do all the work, then you weren't cut out to be an artist. You don't want to take the time to learn the craft, you don't want to make the effort to perfect it, you just want to rush to the end and be patted on the back for something you didn't accomplish. Writing is hard. Writing takes work. It's an investment. It takes time. Back when I was a teenager I wrote fanfiction, and I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment every time I finished something novel-length. I guarantee you she feels no similar sense of ownership over anything she's had the AI make for her, and I suspect the reason she's so angry is she's fully aware of that, and all this is just cope to offset the empty way she feels about her "work."

[@spookyfirst9514]

1:00:31 Before I buy a book, I read a sample chapter first. That is what I enjoy most about bookstores. I can skim through the book to see if I really want to buy it. If there's no sample chapter, and the blurb doesn't sell me on it, I go to the reviews wherever they are for more clues. Money is tight and I can't afford to pick up a book just for a pretty cover.

[@llamasmeowing2061]

Personally, I pay attention to the blurb the most, but certain covers definitely turn me off. I don't like pretty designs or symbolic items, because too me it's way too indicative of a booktoky book based on "aesthetics" and catering excessively to cookie cutter tropes.I like covers with the characters actively in a scene doing something they actually do in the book.

[@M.M.Morris]

i also mostly pay attention to the blurb on the back of a book. it just goes to show you that every reader is drawn to books for any number of reasons. but the gorst thing all of us noticed is a cover and then the title. sometimes its interchangeable but for the most part, if a book has a solid title and a great cover that really captures the soul of a book, i’ll get it regardless of a blurb. sometimes that doesn’t always pan out well. but, a good cover and title can take you far.

[@AJadedLizard]

Bad stock photos or overly-designed covers turn me off. I made the mistake of reading a really terrible zombie book called This Dark Earth; the premise was somewhat interesting and it's set in my region, which is nice, but the book has no less than three separate taglines on the cover: it's over designed and cluttered and the entire book suffers from the same sense of poor planning (every single chapter has a different PoV character, which is fine, and a different narrative style, such as first person past-tense or third person present, which very much is not). I'm glad it was a library book because I only lost time; holy Lord was it bad.

[@mzcyberbat]

Before watching this....I am sure this is inspired by Matt Shaw - some of his were A.I covers.

[@goodmanticore]

Of course people need to edit. Just throw the manuscript through Grammarly rather than pay a person to edit for you. :)

[@spookyfirst9514]

6:19 I love the turkey frame. Makes me wonder if it's self basting and if the timer will pop out her nose.

[@invariant47]

nice thumbnail

[@spookyfirst9514]

17:50 She's not just splitting hairs, she's micro-planing them into a fine dust. The implication is that it's all a Catch-22: no matter what's decided it's wrong. So no decision matters. This is Nixon Logic: "I am not a crook." 🤪

[@theflyingspaget]

Okay, AI is probably theft, I can agree with that. But as a tech bro, where do we draw the line? Is using AI to generate one aspect of a cover thats otherwise made by hand still theft? Is using AI as a reference theft? Is tracing AI images as part of a larger piece still theft? These aren't gotcha questions, I'm asking because well, I'm a shitty artist and I like taking shortcuts for my own work. You draw a line in the sand where theft ends and work begins but then the tides of change roll in and who knows what's what. ETA: similar question for text generations, is it wrong for me to use LLMs as a basis for my work? Obviously not copy pasting responses into my drafts but if I take pretty turns of phrase and plot threads from AI, am I still stealing?

[@KirkpattieCake]

"Is using AI to generate one aspect of a cover theft?" Yes, because the data was gathered through theft. Anything produced by that contains art theft. "Is using AI as a reference theft? Is tracing Ai images theft?" AIGenerated content is created and sold through theft; redrawing it in any way is art laundering. "Is it wrong to use LLMs as a basis for your work?" Yes. The output from LLMs is all built on stolen work from artists who did not compensate. You are actively being lazy and profiting off the works of others who were not compensated nor did they consent to their work being used or resold to you for use. If you didn't write the phrases you're using, they aren't yours. If you need plot threads, talk to people, brainstorm. Yes, all LLMs, art or writing, are theft. There are no blurred lines, they're clear, and you're coping because you're lazy and greedy.

[@TaikenUchida41]

@@KirkpattieCake Regarding using "A.I." as reference, I have mixed opinions about this - if someone internalizes "A.I." images as references and then use them as inspiration while they draw something else, that would count as something they delivered with enough intent to be original. The problem I see when using generated images as an almost direct final result that one drew from scratch is that it will likely end up being too similar to someone else's work, considering "A.I." is been trained and finetuned on most of what's on the internet. That's all to say that originality is not just a matter of how "different" or "similar" something is to anything else. It's a matter of one's own experiences, choices and personality Vs. how much something depends on the work of someone else to exist. Accelerated algorithms *_are_* the datasets they were trained on, but by their very nature are making it difficult to detect how much something may be original, anymore, all because we just can't measure how much algorithms were involved. If it's difficult for people in general to tell where ideas come from, the ones who care less about authorship and the process of creation are not going to bother thinking deep about it, but what I find to be most offensive is when people make assumptions out of contempt, to feel better about something, and accept the superficiality of what's generated as an excuse to homogenize people. No matter how much you and I try to explain ourselves, it won't mean anything to other people unless they choose to personally invest themselves in a craft like we do for long enough until they start to see and experience changes-how much of today's population do you think are willing to do that instead of looking for quick fixes? I believe that very few people stay on the path of making it a journey for themselves...with all the hardships that it entails. If people knew what they wanted, things would make sense...and that requires working on looking at things and themselves without contempt. The silver lining is that all of this could breed more tightly-knit artistic communities or people who actually care about what they do and who are respectful toward each other.

[@JustinThorLPs]

Watch her video cuz. she was saying it was absurd that that guy was saying it was $1000.

[@M.M.Morris]

Oh my fucking god. That’s the point… Bryce isn’t saying “Spend 1,000 dollars plus or else i’ll tell everyone to ignore you.” He isn’t saying it costs a thousand dollars for every book cover or that you need to pay 1K, what it is, is his response to the excuses he keeps seeing from others who want to use A.i to make their book covers. THEY don’t want to pay a thousand dollars and think they’re going to save money that way. but If they bothered to shop around for an artist they’d know that most book covers don’t cost 1k+ if they bothered to get involved with the community they’d know that. but they don’t so here we are. there are affordable artists everywhere. but since A.i people don’t actually read , and it’s painfully obvious by their lack of comprehensive reading skills. They can’t even comprehend that. No one is paying that much for a cover unless they have the money and are seeking the very best of the best. i have seen writers who are broke like a joke bide their time to find a good cover artists for low prices. I watched her video. i watched to the part where she insulted an “affordable” artist by calling the picture an abomination and then has the gall to get up on her soapbox and wag her finger about “how DARE we talk to you guys that way!” which is really hilarious considering the drawing in question wasn’t for a book cover it was a character design. no one in their right mind would use that as a book cover because it ISN’T one. The only people who are saying all book covers are too expensive and cost upwards of 1k+ are the folks who want to use a.i to make their book covers for them. instead of, oh i don’t know, attempting to actually shop around and ingratiate themselves in the community?. However, since they don’t, they’ve cast themselves into a limited readership because the community at large, writers, authors, readers, artists alike, do not like a.i covers. We.don’t.like.it. We.don’t.WANT.it. Bryce isn’t threatening anyone he is WARNING people against this for X,Y,Z reasons. but since it made the a.i bros angy wangy they have to say it’s a threat and that their free speech is being infringed on. Bullshit. Whatever happened to Of a natural consequence. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes. Don’t know what that looks like? let me point you to the subject of this video. Example A: No nonsense editor is what a stupid game and its titular stupid prize looks like. At the end of the day do what you will. i can’t stop you, and no one else can. At the end of the day it will ruin your reputation because the community will not want you. bottom line. Don’t get your way? throw a tantrum and say you’re being abused and bullied by mean artists. Most of the write to market authors can’t fucking write anyways. There are artists and then there are counterfeiters. The artist is always superior to the fraud. The rest of us don’t need a.i or writers who utilize it. But they sure as shit need us to be able to get the results they want.

[@Simply_Grim]

As a indie project that utilizes artificial intelligence (A.I.) and human creativity, I have listened to both sides of the debate. Your channel has caught my attention a great deal, and I have taken in your input and thoughts on the subject matter. Even though I am pro using the tool, and I have found a way to balance still focusing on human creatives at the helm, I agree that anyone using the tool should be aware that traditional creatives will be twice as critical when judging your creations, compared to the way they judge someone who created something the traditional way. Clearly, humans come first in the creative process, but this is also a step forward for us. There are several experienced creators who now use it in their line of work, not to replace their skills, but to experiment with, and to help them brainstorm new ideas. Hopefully, we will be able to determine how to regulate and balance humans and machines in the future..