Artificial Intelligent applications have greatly broadened the landscape for us creative types, although there's one area where I find AI degrading.
Yes, I have enjoyed the enhancement in entertainment that AI brings, not only in narrative motion pictures where it can create vivid and visceral imaginative worlds, but in silly social media posts of things like Olympic pool diving cats and talking babies that look at public figures. Unfortunately, the nefarious applications lie close at hand, intent on corrupting civilization. Won't be the first thing.
Books and AI
I've been writing books lately. When submitting manuscripts to publishers there's always the question, "Did you use A.I. in the creation of any portion of this manuscript?" It's a sad but necessary question. It's in the writing of what should be original and creative works that I found AI repulsive. I'm quick to answer "NO." to the question. I could not imagine a novel that had any creative or original punch that was written by AI. I do not believe it's possible, even with the ubiquitous advertising of claims to the opposite. AI is great for pattern recognition tasks, but it cannot think originally. Indeed, AI is currently only able to composite what others have thought up in the past. AI is the opposite of original thinking.
So, I was gratified this morning when I stumbled across an Instagram post about a New MIT report on how ChatGPT is eroding critical thinking skills of its users. I followed the link to the TIME Magazine report. Here's a quote and link.
ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperforned at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study. (Link to TIME article on the report.)
The MIT study was examining the writing of SAT essays, which, of course, negates the whole purpose of a SAT essays—can you think originally (and write) on your own.
Bias Alert: I Can Write but I Can't Draw
So, while I can write, I can't draw very well. I rationalize using AI (Microsoft's Copilot with Adobe's Photoshop) to help me create covers and dust jackets for books and to help illustrate projects for which visuals do not exist. Here are some examples for which I take NO CREDIT other than being able to prompt the drawing engines with words.
For the Angel Quest Documentary (Link)
For Wizard Clip Haunting Alternative Book Covers (Link)
For Forthcoming Novel Covers: Tiger's Hope and Wizard Clip Haunting Jr (YA&YR)
The Tiger's Hope cover was imported to Photoshop to adjust over all color, shadows and then to add the text. Publishers are considering, but nothing soon and if they accept I'm sure they won't use the above image.
The Wizard Clip Haunting Jr. cover is further along with my distribution company, Nineveh's Crossing. I just ordered the first case from Ingramspark our POD printer and distributor. Here's what the front, back, and spine will look like.
How I Created This Cover with AI and Photoshop
The image of Eve (12) and Henry (9) came from Microsoft Pilot on the first prompt that went something like this: "Draw me a picture of a 1797, 12-year old farm girl and her 9-year old brother. They're standing in a field of flax and looking scared." The word "scared" evidently triggered a restriction and Copilot refused to draw anything. So I changed the word from "scared" to looking up in awe," and what you see above as the base image is what came back. I then realized that Eve's secret weapon was prayer, so I wrote a followup prompt: "The girl should be holding a black prayer book." The book showed up under her arm as you see it. I then wrote: "There should be a crescent moon in the sky." The moon came back but it was in the middle of the image. I left it there for the time being. I then wrote, "Put a two story farm house and barn in the background." Copilot it did. All the images returned were square and did not lend themselves to a vertical oriented book cover (5"x 7"). So I wrote: "Add space at the top of the image for the title of a book." The vertical portrait aspect ratio above returned, which I could use, so I downloaded it.
For the back page of the jacket I wrote, "Delete the children in the foreground and the farmhouse and barn in the background, and add a vertically standing white, limestone tombstone in the foreground, and put a tree growing behind it." What returned I downloaded. There was two or three other iterations where I asked for a creek with boulders along its bank...but I didn't like the creek, so I told Copilot to erase the creek.
I then merged the two images in Photoshop. They were different in intensity, so I softened the edge with Photoshop's Clone Stamp Tool with a large soft edge, then I cut out and moved the moon over, used the clone stamp to mend the hole the moon had created, adjusted the overall tone, hue, intensity, and color to my liking and added the text, and I found a Jerusalem Cross (.png) on line, and added it to the book. Originally, the cross was on top of Eve's arms, so I erased the parts of the cross that were on her arms, and then darkened the cross, and made it mostly transparent so it looked like it was always part of the black book.
I guess I should add that the entire process was built on a template from Ingram that was generated for the 5x7 trim size of the book, and with a .433" spine. When you request the template from Ingram, the generator asks for the ISBN number (I have a library of numbers I bought years ago from Broker), the final trim size, and the number of pages. To know the number of pages you first have to lay out the book. I use InDesign. When I was done I had 172 pages. Ingram also asks for a paper selection (I chose groundwood).
I hope this was informative.
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