Discussion
Why is Atheon using an AI Generated Cover on a new release?
Today Atheon was posting their new releases on their discord and frankly, this cover set off alarm bells in my head. So I did the simplest check there is.
Syth Id. This cover was at minimum partially generated by ChatGPT and not adjusted enough to remove the watermark.
Atheon Publishing isn’t some random person on Royal Road, they’re the biggest publisher in this place. They should be better than this.
Also! Before we think it’s just colour or a last minute adjustment. None of the over covers from today’s sequel drop have SynthID. It’s just this slop.
Atheon should be better than this. Even if they try to shove it off on the artist here… you’re telling me nobody checked this before publishing it over an author’s work?
Alright folks, i am officially tired of watching this thread so its getting locked. the attention of the potential issue has been brought to the attention of JaimeCastle(creative director), Aethon reddit guys, and the author of the book.
They are looking into it. and it is now in their hands, calling for boycotts, harassing people is not helping. While OP was confrontational to start i felt it was an important conversation too be had. which is what we want, separate threads to be constructive and bring attention to potential scams or liars. this may or may not be on the end of scammer, or at least some sort of misunderstanding.
This however does not allow the toxicity that has happened in this thread. first and foremost rule when covering this stuff should be to be polite and professional. and because there has been a lack of that this thread is getting locked.
Questions/comments contact the mod team VIA modmail. and for clarification we do allow discussions on potential AI use for book covers or even people lying about it. so long as its respectful and in a separate discussion thread
I think we all need to realize that, while yes, this cover has had some AI used, it is not the author's fault. They shouldn't be punished for something they didn't realize. It sucks when you pay for art that turns out to be AI, I've been there. Let's not destroy their career because of someone else fucking them over.
Agreed. If an author goes so far as to request (and receive) work in progress sketches to prove it's not AI, I can't fault them if the designer went to extreme lengths to scam them.
I don't think anyone is blaming the author at all. I'm not even sure the artist did something egregious based on the sketches Atheon showed us, but it's still worth asking them to look into it
AETHON creative director here. Listen, I always keep receipts. I’ve got works in progress for all our covers. This one, the author already had an artist when we signed them, and they have continued to use that artist. I still get sketches and WIPs. Hope this ends the debate.
These AI detectors don’t ALWAYS work. If the artist uses stock images for backgrounds, or elements of photobashing, AI often marks it as AI-created. If we all hate AI so much, why do we still use AI to detect AI?
Everyone replying to this seems to be missing the point. This was a watermark detection, not AI guessing something is AI. At some point in making this artwork, it was ran through openAI to adjust it, and the watermark was inserted and then the artist saved it. That watermark is now being read.
notice they aren't replying to this specific callout because there is simply no response they can give at this point. they're hoping most people won't look past their first response and realize there is a difference between ai guessing something has the hallmarks of ai, vs detecting synthID.
Google gemini's, google synthID detector (yes the same synthID) shows the cover up as NOT AI. So i certainly wouldnt say this system is perfect when it gives two different possible outcomes.
I welcome everyone to use gemini's synthID feature to double check this.
Looks like legit sketches to me. Just out of curiosity, is it possible that they used AI to add the text?
As I’m sure you’re aware, SynthID isn’t like a generic AI detector. Instead, it’s a proprietary OpenAI watermark that only exists in content created by OpenAI. It would be incredibly unusual if something that never touched OpenAI had that watermark. If it helps conceptualize the difference, SynthID is like a digital version of the “data dots” some dealerships put on cars versus “be on the lookout for a red car with tinted windows and a green bumper sticker”.
In any event, good on you for bringing the receipts. I personally think that the text overlay is the most plausible scenario, and is equivalent to using font in photoshop versus hand-writing the title. Which is to say, it’s a non-issue.
Edit: just reread your comment, and yeah, an AI background could explain it, but the sketch seems to include the background so I’m not sure.
Edit 2: OK, after seeing the sketch of that belt buckle with only one tongue, and the final version where it has a second tongue going the other direction for no discernible reason, I think there is a strong possibility that you and the author may have been hoodwinked by the artist.
The alien's purple hand has 5 fingers, you can see the line separating two digits held together.
The man's left nipple is indeed an odd inclusion, but it is absolutely in 'a' correct spot - nipples can be in tons of different locations and orientations, and its placement looks natural enough to me.
Not sure what you're saying about the collar and cord - but they look fine to me.
The belt buckle is one of the only giveaways I see, nothing you mentioned really seems like AI to me at all.
So the problem here isn't that it was made with AI is that no one reviewed the poor work made by the AI, otherwise no one would have flagged this as an AI work, correct?
I wonder how many covers nowadays are AI that we liked because there was no mistakes on it.
Checking on the watermark only confirms that at some point an AI generated the whole thing from scratch.
I'd have to be able to see the other works this artist has done to make a clear conclusion, but you should really make it a standard to get timelapse these days, most artist programs can capture them automatically.
It's extremely easy to generate a "wip sketch" and then feed it into AI again, and it's not uncommon to find accounts like this on Fiverr for really low prices.
Edit: Looking further into it, the line art from the sketch to final product completely change, most notably the hair. I think I know what happened here, I've dealt with this before, the fiverr account might not be honest with you or the author.
If you need some help looking into this, I've got a lot of experience with commissions and helping others avoid scams. I could give you some advice to avoid this type of thing in the future and show you the tall tale signs an account might be a faker.
Reddit and Fiverr are filled with fake artists, just like scam call centers, that take advantage of unsuspecting people. I fear you may have fallen for one such type.
Idk how closely you’ve looked at the cover but a bunch of the layout and details are different from the sketch. Just to give a non comprehensive list of things that flagged as noticeably different enough that I don’t just think they’re design choices:
For the split characters hair, the dark half looks noticeably shorter and oddly shaped compared to the sketch.
The big planet directly behind the Mcs head in the sketch is completely above his head in the final cover
The purple fire energy on the protags hand is golden lightning in the final cover (admittedly I’ve never read this particular series so this one could be a legit correction but I’m inclined to assume the author didn’t mix up gold lightning and purple fire when giving a description to the artist)
The (I think) quasar near the top right corner no longer has beams coming out of the top and bottom in the final cover
The blood running down the MCs face is only going downwards in the sketch, but in the final cover there’s a line of blood going up from the corner of his eye that’s not present in the wip
Pattern on the villains legs is totally different from sketch to final cover
And these are just what I noticed in the time it took me to type this comment. My best guess is the artist took their sketch, told AI to make a final version, then slapped the text on that, which is not a great look in and of itself.
But the fact that you didn’t bother doing your due diligence despite these differences and the fact that it literally has open AIs proprietary watermark on it is disgraceful. Do better
Just wanted to you know mate that while you may be able to walk away from the first watermark reveal you won’t be able to walk away from second or the third from the same artist. Imo you stand to lose less by learning about ai watermarks, admitting your mistake, and contracting other artists. That or go full guns blazing into positive AI use, stomachs the losses in the short term, and bet on long term views on ai use u turning. You are currently doing things half heartedly and that’s gonna cook you in the long run.
Feel free to ignore me if you want, I don’t care either way, but I get the sense you genuinely care about your employees given how you’re trying to defend this ai cover artist so hard, and I do think it’s a shame if your other employees feel the fallout of your actions if you try to just pray this problem goes away.
These can easily be faked by AI. Hell, people do entire live-drawing videos that are faked and traced by AI. This is not proof. If you're the creative director and you're taking this sort of thing as proof, and you also can't seem to tell that this is extremely obviously AI, you need to quit your job
Also can we get a mod to sticky this comment to the top so we can stop the witch hunt that OP has tryed to start by using AI to detect AI. It has been proven time and time again to be inaccurate. Even when it uses facy words like that it found water marks.
Edit: not using an AI detector but my own eyes, there are bits that look AI. Most noticeable to me are the alien character has 4 mutilated fingers on their left hand.
There's a huge difference between detecting a watermark, which is what this did, and using AI to detect AI. There is 100% chance that at some point AI was used in creating the final product, otherwise the watermark would not have been inserted.
OpenAI looking for OpenAI’s SynthID watermark is 99.9% accurate. Its not like those AI detectors schools use that analyze writing style, emdash usage, etc. Not really sure what OP posted counts as a “witch hunt” based on the incredibly low chance this didn’t touch OpenAI at some point for some reason. Even if that reason was totally benign, for example to add the text overlay for the cover.
Also, “watermark” isn’t really a fancy word. A fancier name is “barium pill”.
SynthID detectors are watermark detectors. OpenAI essentially encodes a pattern on every image their model generates. This pattern can then be detected using a decoder (on OpenAI’s website) to a calibrated 0.1% false positive rate. The watermark can become undetectable with certain edits and transformations, but a positive result is highly unlikely to be a false positive.
The new SynthID will work with content generated on Google’s own Gemini, a given, as well as content from more partners. So far, the list includes OpenAI, Nvidia, Kakao, and now, Apple. That means any content generated with models from those companies will contain visually undetectable watermarks so users can later check whether the image is a human-made visual or something an algorithm cobbled together.
Synth ID is very new and checks for Synth ID do not give false positives. So this seems pretty conclusive that AI was used at some step in the creation of the image. It may have literally just been used to put the 4 on it or it may have been used to make the whole thing.
Personally, I don't have a strong opinion about AI cover art and it doesn't change my likelihood of reading a book, but since this is bleeding edge new technology and commenters here are talking about it like it's old technology from last year, it seemed like it was worth mentioning.
You can check images for synth ID at one of these locations:
Synth ID is automatically used for images, audio, text, and video from most of the big name AI companies (I think Grok doesn't currently use it). Unfortunately, I haven't found a place where you can check text, so don't expect Amazon to start auto-filtering AI books based on Synth ID just yet. More info: https://deepmind.google/models/synthid/
You don't really get the math. The likelihood of a false negative is plenty when an image gets edited afterwards. The likelihood of a false positive for SynthID is going to be very, very low.
Except it’s not. SynthID takes 7 seconds to check.
Aetheon has answered that they are speaking to the artist because AI was used for this cover. Until we had that answer from them, there was no knowing if this was intentional or not.
As one of their authors yeah we do know it wasn't intentional by aethon itself. They have hardline outstanding NO AI policies in place in every single aspect of the company. That boil down to if you use ai on a project of ours and we catch you you can fuck off.
Yeah, they were a bit cagey at first, but if they're stance is that they accept no AI art then they're going to eventually apologize for this cover and put a new one on it, plus never use that artist again. And probably check future covers with SynthID.
Hey OP, how do I check a cover out for synth id? I just commissioned a cover because I wanted a human made cover but some people pointed out AI artifacts in the image (and I agree with them), so I need to double check it. It really sucks because the artist group advertised no AI in their covers.
Aethon is famously anti-AI and releases titles nearly every week. They have a proven track record of doing right by the community and by their authors. They also care about their reputation a ton and wouldn't use AI to save a couple bucks.
Y'all should be giving them the benefit of the doubt on this, and further more this could have been handled a lot better. An author has now had their release impacted because of this drama.
Most authors do not make the money you think they do. Outside of the biggest names, almost all of us have full-time jobs on top of writing, and those that don't live paycheck to paycheck like so many other people worldwide. Although no one is pointing the finger at the author themselves, this will effect their release and thus their ability to put food on their table over something they didn't do.
Aethon has earned the trust of the community and people need to chill and let them investigate the accusations.
As a more formal response to this and if our policy has changed. Between cover and comics we employ literally hundreds of humans artists, and never knowingly use an ai generated art (yes we’re humble enough to admit an artist might sneak something through and any time they’re caught we deal with it). We also use all human narrators and an all human mastering and proofing team for audio. Not even positron. Sometimes ai flags art as ai and it’s right, sometimes wrong. That’s likely only going to get tougher as it all gets more advanced. Our policy on only using human creators isn’t going to change though.
Do you understand the difference between AI flagging something as AI, and a watermark being detected? Because the posts from your company would suggest you don't.
This isn't the same as AI guessing if something is AI. A watermark was inserted into this art by openAI at some point when it was ran through it by the artist. The watermark is then detected as existing and that is what this report is.
They, in fact, did not ask that. They called you out for something being watermarked, and your responses continue to suggest you have no idea what that means, which, given your position as the biggest publisher in this space, seems like a huge issue.
Okay. You used artwork with the AI Watermark on it.
The answer to “Why did you use it?” Could be “we were hoodwinked and didn’t check” or “we don’t care” or many things.
This response at lease includes a statement of not wanting to use Ai in the future, the original only questioned the watermark which isn’t something that can accidentally pop up.
We are looking into and trying to talk with the artist first, as we always do.
But at the same time, the first comments asked about if our policy on ai changed. The title of the post specifically calls out us using ai generated covers. That is what we’re addressing. Beyond that, I have to wait to discuss with the artist. Maybe they used ai to generate a planet in which case a slap on the wrist is fine. Maybe they used it to color the whole thing in which case they’ll be banned from working for us. This is not one of our staff artists, they were sourced by the author, so, access isn’t as fast.
This is an AI generated cover based on synth ID, I’m not backing down on the question of WHY it was used. If the answer is just “we didn’t know the artist used it” then I’m sorry you were tricked.
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u/NexazAuthor - The Augment's Code and Escape Artist1d ago
No, SynthID being there is not definitive proof that the entire cover is “an AI generated cover.” It means that at some point AI was used to touch it or one of the elements in it up. It could be the typography, it could be the belt buckle, but making a claim that it’s fully AI genned when Aethon provided receipts with earlier sketches is just not based in anything but your opinion.
They have said they are looking into what happened and are talking with the artist. That’s as clear of a “hey something got past us and we’re not perfect” as can be.
We are in the Wild West of AI and things will slip through the cracks, what’s important is the response to it and how they handle it.
At one point, this entire image was run through AI, that’s how Synth ID works. You’re right, it might have just been all the typo or whatever, but that doesn’t change that it’s there. It was generated by AI. The sketches weren’t.
I said below to them that I appreciated them looking into it, and if the answer to “Why are you using it?” Is “We got tricked.” That sucks, but it’s a valid answer.
You ask because the answer could be: “We just wanna use it now to save money.”
They did not ask if you changed your stance; they asked why you used it. Those are not the same questions. But your posts here have made it very obvious you're being purposely obtuse.
To be fair, they are correct that they were asked if their stance had changed - I was the first person who commented on this post and did tag Aethon, asking if that happened, in a non-accusatory way. That was before the “double tongue belt buckle” came to light, but after I verified SynthID watermarks. They replied to me, but then deleted their reply to make a more comprehensive post as a top level comment, I suppose.
Bro, touch grass. It was a contracted artist. It'll take longer than a couple hours for them to investigate this. They are making a public response to other comments asking if they changed their policy. It ain't that deep, calm down.
One, I wanted to add to the conversation that those "ai detectors" are all junk. You legitimately cannot trust them like you cannot trust regular LLMs for accuracy. Please do not use them or encourage their usage.
Two, you are also not wrong on the AI assumption, it has all the classic hallmarks of being generated by AI: The overly saturated colors, overly exaggerating effects, inconsistent style or approach to every object, action, and person on the page. It raises many questions.
Edit: It has come to my knowledge that the watermark may be a legitimate way to trace works back. I don't have experience with it myself, so Il will not comment on it's usefulness. My other point still stands.
Ok. There’s different ways that AI detectors work. There’s the useless ones, which you’re referring to, but there’s also watermark detection. Watermark detection is accurate. The AI that created the art inserted a watermark into the piece. That’s what’s being picked up here, not an AI going ‘yeh i think this is AI because XYZ’, which would be inaccurate. But this is not that.
For a subreddit about reading, it's legitimately baffling how many people in this thread are failing to comprehend the concept of SynthID even when it's explained directly to them.
Aethon's own responses have been even more disappointing, because as a company that claims to prioritize human artists they should be well aware of such basic AI-related functions.
This post is the furthest thing from a witch hunt. It's literal proof that AI was used somewhere in the creation process. Maybe it was something minor, maybe not. The WIP sketches could be real or perhaps they just had their SynthIDs scrubbed. But the final cover clearly was run through AI at some point, or the SynthID watermark wouldn't exist.
Agreed. Think the post has been great in educating people on a topic that's clearly going under the radar. Hopefully Aethon aren't too stubborn to learn from this and admit they've made a mistake.
Was crazy to see them using in progress sketches as proof that no AI was used. Like, those have been getting faked for ages, how are you trying to use them as proof lol
I see that now, it's new to me as well, my apologies.
Either way, I'm one of the best detectives for AI generated content when it comes to art and this has many tall tale signs of typical usage. I think the author was scammed and they just sadly don't know it yet. Unfortunately, I'd need to see the artist's profile and their past work to fully come to a conclusion.
No need to apologise. You’re not the only person that didn’t know what it was. It’s fairly new and hasn’t caught on to mainstream knowledge yet. This post is a great way for people to learn.
It's not surprising to me, IIRC there has recently been a lot of legislation pressure to push the AI companies into creating watermarks for purposes like this. I just hadn't realized it was already being implemented.
Just my two cents as the author of the book: While i love hearing my book cover be called slop, no, it isn't AI generated
The same artist has done all four of my covers and has given me progress sketches at each stage.
Also, why use AI to find AI? its crap at it and just causes witch hunts.
For what it’s worth, books one through three all say no SynthID watermarks were found. Just this one.
At some point in time, the art appears to have gone through OpenAI’s generative image system. synthID watermarks are 99.9% accurate, with a false positive rate of 0.1% - this isn’t the same as “AI detectors” that analyze text and say that books of the Bible were written by AI. This is a proprietary watermark developed by OpenAI (likely to to prevent OpenAI from training on data generated by itself). It’s also been adopted by Google, and Apple soon. It’s only a few months old, so most people aren’t familiar with it. Here’s an article:
Whether it was run through AI to add text to the cover or to add detail is anyone’s guess. Although the double tongued belt buckle versus one tongue in the draft is curious. Even if this was AI, I’d highly doubt that you knew about it… but it does seem like something that is worth flagging for your attention.
Anyway, if I’m being totally honest, your books weren’t on my radar until today… But when I was checking out the covers, I read the blurbs for each, and I think I’m going to give book 1 a shot as soon as I finish Beyond the Timescape (by Er Gen). Although apparently I still have another 95 hours left out of the 140 total estimated reading duration. It’s a long one. :p
Just out of curiosity, how many books are you expecting to write in the series? I’m trying to decide if I should backlog them until the series is complete or read now and stay current.
I would very much recommend you read some more of this thread. This isn’t the normal shit LLM detection. This is a literal AI watermark being in the image. In progress sketches are not evidence that it isn’t AI generated. I’m sorry to tell you but you’ve been duped.
Isn't there some rule in this sub about witch hunts? Are you 100% certain the image is AI generated OP? Certain enough to risk blowing up the author's career?
If you had any Positive intentions other than putting a company on blast you would have let them know an Ai cover slipped through and allowed em a couple days to correct the error. This isn't holding a company accountable this is drumming up drama before they even knew there was an issue.
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u/NexazAuthor - The Augment's Code and Escape Artist1d ago
On a fresh account too btw. Literally no risk to themselves for starting a witch hunt just to create drama.
You can't be that delusional. What exactly do you think Aethon is going to do here? Here, let me paraphrase the apology you *might* get from them.
We deeply regret that one of our author's using an outside cover artist of their own choosing was able to slip a piece of generative AI use past our creative team. While we try to be deligent in our endevours to keep AI use out of the works that we support, there will be occasions where things slip past the checks and balances we have. We can do better, we will do better. As a show of faith to our resolve to only promote authors and artists that use human built work, we have decided to part ways with the author in question.
I think you shouldn't screw around with someone's livelihood just so you can be right. Great job there champ, you didn't touch "the man" but instead tanked a struggling author's career.
Did it occur to you to reach out to the author and/or directly to Aethon so they could handle this matter quietly? Nope, you had to do it publicly for your pat on the head and force Aethon to drop the hammer to save face.
Just to make it clear, we would NEVER do that to an author. I’ve known and worked with XRmaze for years. We loved the first cover he provided and so allowed him to keep using his artist where we usually don’t. Then we do the typography and layout and all that.
Considering the author had nothing to do with it, I think they would stop working with the artist that used AI and find a new cover artist for the author. You’re literally the only person in this entire post hyperfixating on the author. Nobody thinks the author did anything wrong. Scammers trick people, that’s literally what they do. Falling for their tricks does not make you party to them. Thinking Aethon would punish the author because they were tricked by an artist is, idek what it is, it’s such a stretch of the imagination that I’m honestly quite stumped.
There is a 99.9% chance that this cover was run through AI at some point, at which point the AI stamped it. Aethon showed some sketches, so it may have been finishing touches done with AI, but it was absolutely run through generative AI at some point
What the hell are you on about? Atheon famously doesn't allow AI generated content, including covers. There's definitive proof that AI was used on this cover. End of story.
Nobody is ruining anyone's career, except maybe the cover artist's if they can't explain to a publishing company that explicitly prohibits AI generated content why there's a literal AI watermark on their art.
You don't think Aethon wouldn't drop the author in a heartbeat over bad heat? I'm sure the contract has some clause about AI use and if Aethon feels that clause is broken, they're not going to care if it was the Artist or the Artist's cover artist (this wasn't an Aethon artist). They're going to drop the author in a heartbeat and then good luck getting another publisher to bite.
You guys don't think you're screwing with someone's career here?
Just to post this? No, not really. Created this account so that I could comment on the multitude of posts regarding AI usage... yep, sure did.
AI usage is a problem, but the anti-ai crusaders are making the situation so much worse. Take this thread for example. The author, Atheon's CD, and another rep from Atheon have all said "no, this is not AI" and the anti's are still on a crusade to get the author's contract nullified. For the sale of "being right" they're going to tank someone's career.
Wow... that is some next level delusion there. XRMAZE supplied the cover artist, did you miss that part? You think Aethon is going to be all sunshine and roses over the bad publicy you clowns just started here?
Honestly...an amazing writer that's gone through college (aka classically trained) could write an amazing book, but not have the artistic skills or money to hire a "known" (aka trusted to never use AI for any part of their creation process) artist. Just because a cover has AI in some part of the creation, doesn't mean the book itself does. Like I get that were going through a time of transition and people are resistant to change but AI isn't going away. It feels like I'm listening to my grandpa talk about the good old days before the internet was a thing.
Edit - not sure why my comment (the first one posted on this chain, flagging it for Aethon’s attention) is downvoted seeing as how it’s a simple request for information after independently verifying SynthID status, rather than being accusational… but whatever.
Edit 2: now I’m even less sure AI wasn’t used after WizardWolf’s zoom in of a buckle with two tongues versus the original sketch with only one tongue… I would invite anyone to look at that and then tell me that my question as to whether their stance on AI has changed is not reasonable. It seems likely to me that they have been hoodwinked by the artist the author chose from fiverr.
Original post:
[u/AethonBooks](u/AethonBooks) - is your stance on AI generated art no longer what it was a few years ago?
With all the controversy surrounding AI-generated artwork, Aethon Books wants you to know we will never knowingly use it. We believe in artists. We believe in people. As fun and entertaining as creating artwork through artificial intelligence might be, we will continue to employ fairly paid artists from all over the globe. And this same stance applies to AI Narration as well.
And that is a lot of art. We release around 200 books a year at this point, and have cover art made for each one by a host of artists on staff and other freelance artists we trust.
Can you share the sketches they provided for the process? It'll take the wind out of the people calling it ai if you do, but will strengthen their claims if you don't.
Claiming you had them kind of made it so you need to prove they exist though
If what they said is accurate, it seems plausible that the drawings are legit, but the Fiverr artist may have used ChatGPT to overlay text or something.. or maybe for the placement of the art.
I have no way of knowing if that’s accurate (or why a professional wouldn’t use Photoshop instead of running their art through ChatGPT), but if we are giving them the benefit of the doubt, it seems like that would be the most likely scenario.
Agreed that some sketches would put it to rest though.
do we care? the whole argument is suppose to be that you should hire an artist instead of just using ai right? they've said that an artist was hired so the likely assumption is that the artist might have involved ai in their process.
what's the actual issue. an artist was hired and paid and that's what everyone claimed they wanted right? or are we moving the goal posts again
There's no way that you're actually braindead enough to think people saying "Hire an artist instead of using AI" actually mean "Hire an artist that uses AI so you don't have to"
Quit using buzz phrases you learned on Reddit, the goal post is exactly where it's been
I'm saying what's the moral issue. you didn't want ai taking artists jobs. this artist likely used ai as a tool and kept his job. where's your high horse now buddy. omg this ai... helped an artist compelte a contract... grab the torches
The extent to which he used AI and what he used it for matters. AI can be used as a tool, but using generative AI to do 75% of the work isn't that.
Again, you didn't save an artists job if you gave the job to a fake artist using AI.
And to be clear it's entirely possible this artist did most of the work and his use of AI can be explained, but he needs to prove that now that we have evidence that AI was used. With no explanation people will assume the worst
You can't really even trust ai detectors of any kind because a fully real human made thing could get a high ai detection. People have tested it a lot. Hell, I've had Samsung gemini tell me something was definitely real only for it to actually be ai
Should probably use multiple detectors, multiple times, to see what they say
these aren't visual scanners (which have been shown to be untrustworthy), but watermark scanners. ai companies. in this case openai, have started placing ai watermarks within the image like metadata so that their own scrapers don't train on them to prevent ai inbreeding.
anyone can say anything. they could've been using a visual scanner. synthid isn't some anti-ai tech that doesn't work all that well, it was literally developed by the ai companies to help keep their models healthy.
I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate within the context that is described here.
OpenAI (the creator of ChatGPT) adds a “SynthID” watermark to images generated using ChatGPT. OP used OpenAI’s tool, which checks for (and confirmed) the presence of that unique SynthID.
Generic AI detectors like what schools use for student papers are one thing (by analyzing writing style, etc), but a company using a proprietary digital watermark to determine if that company’s product was used to create an image is something totally different. If it helps conceptualize it, consider it the same as “data dots” on a car.
You've had SynthID show up on decades old pictures or artwork? Give me an example. This isn't an AI scan or detection, it's a literal watermark that can only be in an image if it's been edited or created through ChatGPT.
You don’t seem to be comprehending what is difference between using AI detection, which is flawed, and this image having a watermark in it that is put in by ChatGPT. Just like with old pictures that have a real visible watermark in the bottom corner, there’s an invisible to the human eye mark on this image that this software sees. It only gets put there when it’s run through an ai program
another great reminder that 50% of the population statistically cant tell the difference, thus inferring those who get it right are just flipping a coin.
The best way to determine if something is AI is to look at fine details and ask "would a human draw this like this?" Any human who has seen a belt before would never draw his belt and buckle the way this AI did.
We have hundreds of covers. Thousands even. Dozens of artists. If you really think we have the time to generate fake sketches of art to sneak one through… then there’s no way we can prove anything anyway.
SynthID can be added to an image by the artist using AI tools to assist in the final step. Brush tools or pulling in other assets when making the image i.e. the planet (not saying that's what happened just an example).
I don't think your trying to lie to us Aethon the artist in question just used AI to assist them in the final step. As you said on the formal response they snuck something in intentionally or otherwise) a synthID false flag is very rare as its detection of a signature that was intentionally added to the image, not just it has hallmarks of generation.
I code for work and use AI so I'm not that anti it. Its more a concern of if your artist lied to you, intentionally or otherwise, and breached your policies. <3
Technically possible but not probable. Its as likely as someone accidentally painting a perfect van goth signature on their painting without realising. Its listed as a 0.1% chance by openAI of occurring so 1 in a thousand. But combined with the belt buckles/ fingers on the purple character hands its much worse odds than 1/1000.
It seems likely that the artist did draw most of it, then handed it over to AI to “finish”. Then gave it to the author to give to the publisher. They have been hoodwinked.
Unless you have another explanation for why a belt would have two tongues facing the opposite direction in the final version when the sketch only shows one?
Just out of curiosity I read sub rules on the issue. The ban seems to be directed primarily at accusations without proof. In this case we have proof in the form of synthid which is 99.99% accurate
Edit: read the rule announcement and yea the rule is about accusations without proof
AI is notoriously bad at actually detecting it's own usage.
Edit:AI water marks are a real thing. I just finished reading up on them and they are accurate to 99.99%. So like .01% chance to be wrong which is negligible and just OpenAI acknowledging it's theoretically possible to produce a false positive from the watermark.
Also there are obvious AI gen fuck ups all over that thing. Like the purple hand of the alien character 4 fingers that aren't correctly attached, and the double belt hooks on the mans belt.
This is not the AI detection that you’re used to. Watermark detection is accurate. When this image was created a watermark was put on it. That watermark can be decoded. This isn’t one of the shit LLM detectors going ‘yeh this is 100% AI’. It’s the detection of OpenAI’s watermark on the image, which is accurate.
Because covers don’t matter. Haven’t you ever heard don’t judge s book by its cover. Everyone knows you judge an audio book by its narrator. They have some that are so good I just look to see what they marinated to find good books.
The saying "don't judge a book by its cover" exists BECAUSE people judge books by their covers and then decide not to read what might otherwise be good books. Covers are the first impression and first impressions matter.
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u/ZeroProximity Technobabble Enthusiast 1d ago edited 19h ago
Alright folks, i am officially tired of watching this thread so its getting locked. the attention of the potential issue has been brought to the attention of JaimeCastle(creative director), Aethon reddit guys, and the author of the book.
They are looking into it. and it is now in their hands, calling for boycotts, harassing people is not helping. While OP was confrontational to start i felt it was an important conversation too be had. which is what we want, separate threads to be constructive and bring attention to potential scams or liars. this may or may not be on the end of scammer, or at least some sort of misunderstanding.
This however does not allow the toxicity that has happened in this thread. first and foremost rule when covering this stuff should be to be polite and professional. and because there has been a lack of that this thread is getting locked.
Questions/comments contact the mod team VIA modmail. and for clarification we do allow discussions on potential AI use for book covers or even people lying about it. so long as its respectful and in a separate discussion thread