Bloomsbury AI Controversy
Bloomsbury is facing criticism online for the content of the paperback edition cover of Sara J. Maas’s House of Earth and Blood, which uses an AI-generated image licensed via Adobe Stock. A spokesperson for Bloomsbury shared a statement:
Bloomsbury’s in-house design team created the UK paperback cover of House of Earth and Blood, and as part of this process we incorporated an image from a photo library that we were unaware was AI when we licensed it. The final cover was fully designed by our in-house team.
The image of a wolf on the cover matches one created on Adobe Stock by the user Aperture Vintage, where the image is currently marked as AI-generated. Use of art made with artificial intelligence continues to trouble artists and illustrators, who may lose creative work opportunities or see their work reused without their permission to train certain AI tools.
Other publishers have also come under scrutiny for use of AI-generated artwork. Tor made a similar statement earlier this year in January that they were “not aware” that the cover image for Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini may have been AI-generated. For more, see Locus’ post on the Tor AI controversy.
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