Book by Its Cover Acclaimed sci-fi author John Scalzi, perhaps best known for his 2005 novel “Old Man’s War,” hasn’t shied away from the debate around AI, art, and creative industries. Back in December 2022, after some public experimentation with AI, he wrote on his blog that going forward he would be insisting to publishers he works with that his book covers feature “art that is 100 percent human-derived, even if stock art elements are used.” “I think there is probably a way to responsibly use and generate art with AI, which probably includes ways to make sure ‘training’ is opt-in and compensated for, but we’re not there yet, and I’m okay waiting for some additional clarity before I start playing with it again in public,” he wrote. But in a perfect illustration of the growing ubiquity of algorithmic illustrations, Scalzi has now taken to his blog again with a striking admission: some AI slipped by that edict and ended up on the cover of one of his books. “Well, Goddamnit, it looks like some ‘AI’-generated art got onto one of my covers, specifically, the cover to the Italian edition of ‘Starter Villain,'” he wrote. “Some (actual human) artists tracked down the cover art, and (on Adobe’s stock art site, at least), it’s marked as ‘generated with AI.'” Little Italy It sounds like the mixup came down to a communication failure. “It’s my policy not to accept AI-generated art for final cover art, and I thought I and my team…John Scalzi Discovers That One of His Book Covers Was Created Using AI