We at Wittegen Press firmly object to generative AI when it is used for writing and editing books and creating art for books.
While in the past we have had AI covers for some of our books this was before it became clear that the AI engines were trained on stolen art. We have always created our own book covers and, at the time, looked on AI as a tool to continue to do so. Once the reality of the situation became clear, we removed all AI generated covers and replaced them with human created ones in solidarity with those whose art has been stolen.
We believe that AI slop is a degradation of the publishing space and always produces substandard books.
Hence to our AI policy (based on Complexly’s AI policy which was very comprehensive):
- We will not produce books written or edited by AI.
This includes not just books written purely with LLMs, but also those with significant portions composed or edited by them. - We will not produce book covers or book illustrations created by AI trained on non-consensual data sets.
This includes generative AI tools such as DALL•E 2 and Midjourney. Other tools which are trained on image sets by people who consented to their work being used may be used. - When using AI tools trained on consensual data sets to create visual elements, we will ensure we are not misleading viewers as to what is real or contributing to misinformation.
Where applicable, we will indicate which images were created this way. This will never be a complete book cover. - If book covers or illustrations are included because of undeclared AI usage by an artist or media source, we will immediately take steps to remove these images.
Due to media producers not always correctly revealing their AI usage or directly deceiving customers, and it not always being obvious, it is possible that AI images may slip through. If this is the case and it is brought to our attention, we will attempt to verify and rectify the situation. - We will not produce social media videos written or edited by AI.
- AI tools such as Kindlepreneur’s Amazon description assistant may be used to assist with marketing materials or YouTube’s title and description assistant.
These tools have been designed to optimise existing human made text for the algorithms they are associated with. Since marketing is a specialised space, we feel using them is the only way to compete and be seen in these algorithm-driven spaces.