Readers on io9 got their first look at the cover of Christopher Paolini's new novel, "Fractal Noise." The artwork on the cover was off. The art was originally posted to a stock art site by a user named Ufuk. It was arranged by the in-house designer, who is not credited, as the publisher promotes the art directors and designers of each cover.
The following message was posted on its Twitter, explaining that it licensed an image from a "reputable stock house." This is normal, but it is not normal that a publishing company wouldn't have known that this was artificial. Through its many imprints, including TorDotCom and Nightfire, it has used amazing illustrators to create covers. The apology is weak and devoid of any promise not to use artificial intelligence in the future.
The cover is going to be moved ahead. It really feels like the publisher is rubbing salt in the wound here, as the end of this post notes that "tor has championed creators in the SFF community" This isn't a debut or mid-list author's work, but a huge name with a huge following. If anyone can afford a production delay, it is likely someone like Paolini, even if the book release was delayed a year. The book won't be out until May of 2020.
The hard work of everyone involved, from the authors and artists to the designers, editors, and everyone else at the publishing house, is lost if the covers are almost entirely based on artificial intelligence. One of the leading SFF publishers did a poor job. An amalgamation of the most average image from a prompt is generated by an artificial intelligence art generator. It's disingenuous to call this technology anything but art theft and even more upsetting that Tor would claim to champion creators while still undermining the actual artists whose work was taken by an algorithm to produce this cover
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