Cover of the book “Joan of Arc”. by author Katherine J. Chen.
A new controversy surrounding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) programs to create images is currently shaking up the world of illustration and, this time, the publishing industry. This time on the cover of the Spanish edition of the historical novel Joan of Arc by Katherine J. Chen, published by Destino, the Planeta Group label. Various bookstores They have decided to remove the book from their shelves and return them to the publisher after the illustrator David López, who has worked for Marvel and DC as a comic artist for the Captain Marvel or Catwoman series, published an eight-point message on the social network last Wednesday, from which supposedly showing that the cover was designed by an AI. For example, he pointed out extreme perfectionism and anatomical inconsistencies. Contacted by this newspaper, Planeta assures that the cover was “created by a team designer using popular design programs that have long included AI utilities.”
“There is a lot of evidence. All of the images created by the AI look pretty similar, with a photorealistic drawing featuring nondescript people who meet strict beauty standards: small noses, high cheekbones, incredibly long necks, and the eyes are from two different people. Additionally, the AI has a lot of trouble drawing parts where the hair interacts with the ears. The face has a very perfect finish, but the background is blurred and there is no trace of a brush stroke,” explains David López to this newspaper. “This seems unfair and harmful to artists who are already oppressed. We will not accept it,” said Alberto Haj-Saleh, bookseller at Casa Tomada, one of those who joined the cause along with La Llama Store, Nuevo Nueve. Among others, LES Editorial, Fandogamia or La Imprenta.
What the illustrators denounce, beyond the aesthetic appreciation of the cover, is the publisher's decision to forego an illustrator in favor of making it with a machine. “You harm the work of many professionals, you make it precarious, you underestimate it because you prefer a solution that lacks coherence compared to the work of a professional,” says Carla Berrocal, illustrator and former president of the professional association of Illustrators of Madrid ( APIM). ), which calls on other artists not to work with the label until they commit to abandoning the practice.
Four-time Eisner Prize-nominated cartoonist and animator David Rubin makes the same argument: “This is a way to help each other in the industry and put pressure on so that this doesn't happen, or at least that there is a prize for the publisher who decides to withdraw AI,” he wrote on his X account, celebrating the bookstores’ decision to withdraw the book.
1. The lock comes out of the forehead.
2. Indecision, the texture is sometimes leather armor and sometimes metal.
3. Flag to nowhere.
4. Soldiers blur without judgment.
5 and 8. Things hang undefined.
6. Articulation of armor without criteria.
7. It's not practical. pic.twitter.com/3GCh9VMt4C— David López 🍉🍉🍉 (@davizlopez) January 31, 2024
“The fact that one of the top-grossing publishers chooses to have their covers created by an AI is not ethical,” adds Berrocal. López adds on this topic: “I can understand when a person publishes themselves to put it on Amazon. I understand to a certain extent that she uses this method, but a publisher like this with a powerful start, why are you doing this?”
However, Planeta's editorial department assures that its art and design department consists of more than 30 professionals: “Behind all our covers there is and remains a human team of designers and editors who edit and monitor the ideas, conception and implementation of the covers .”
The other big problem that experts in the industry point out is that the images generated by AI are fed by the work of illustrators. Through a crawler (an algorithm that analyzes the code of a website in search of information), artificial intelligence collects all the information published on the Internet, from the images that an illustrator uploads to his site to promote products in the public domain. . “In addition to the uncertainty, we have a legal problem: these images are not subject to copyright. Many people will have to give up their profession,” says López. Berrocal added that it was “plagiarism” because he did not have the authors’ consent and their works were being copied for financial gain.
As for the booksellers, they make it clear that they are not against AI and understand that it is a tool like Photoshop was at the time. Their main problem is the unpaid use of artists' works: “Artificial intelligence has been nourished by the work of thousands of illustrators to create imperfect pastiches without paying copyrights.” Will we be able to recognize books written by ChatGPT? No, just like we couldn't detect a plagiarized novel… but if it became known that it was plagiarized, we would remove it from our store,” explains Kike García from La Llama Store. In the edition of Destination of Joan of Arc, the author of the cover is not on the first page, as the publisher usually does, criticizes Haj-Saleh: “It is difficult to identify cover by cover, but when the alarm goes off, then it does.” We don’t have an accredited author. We won’t keep the book.”
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