Non KI – Handmade Art
Appeal to publishers
Refrain from using AI-generated images
Dear publishers, dear partners,
Artificial Intelligence has been making massive inroads into the market for months and is already destroying the livelihoods of creative people. Whether book titles, ad campaigns, magazine covers, or entire graphic novels, generative AI is churning out soulless images that lack artistic depth, emotional impact, and distinctive style.
We illustrators and you, the publishers, have worked together as partners for years and decades. We have produced unique creations with expertise, creativity and professional craftsmanship. You have published our work and brought it out into the world with a flair for good stories, a passion for culture, and commercial savvy. Both sides have benefited from this professional symbiosis.
As image experts, we are watching the current development with great concern. The use of AI-generated images threatens not only our profession, but also the entire creative industry and essential values of society. As important representatives and co-creators of our cultural landscape, we should work together to prevent AI from replacing human uniqueness with machine-generated arbitrariness. Three reasons to support our call:
1. GENERATIVE IMAGES ARE LIFELESS AND DO NOT TOUCH.
If you want to tell good stories with strong images, you need experts in visual language, who can translate classic word content into an artistic equivalent of form and color. Professional illustrators don’t just capture content, they interpret and extend the story being told with visual impressions and emotions that can only be conveyed through powerful imagery.
With AI-based image generators, even laypeople can create visual worlds. However, they do not understand how multi-layered and complex the expressiveness of an image can be.
Without a basic understanding of the visual language, the products of the “machine” appear interchangeable and empty of content – or, in the worst case, suggest something harmful or contradictory. Such images either have no effect on the viewer at all – or they even create a strange feeling of irritation and alienation.
None of this can be in your interest. Instead of relying on the aimless randomness of AI, rely on the targeted knowledge and experience of illustrators who have composed images down to the last detail to hit exactly the visual “note” that will appeal to your readers.
2. GENERATIVE KI IMAGES DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
Images create culture. They shape society and make history. When future generations look back on our present, they will see images that tell stories. Images that represent everything we discuss, move, feel and create here and now.
Do we really want to hand over this enormous “power of images” to digital machines? If we do, we will be abdicating our responsibility to the future. And not only that. If AI decides what visual language will shape society, there will be no one to take responsibility.
It’s still different. We vouch for the images we create for you with our name. As creators, we take not only moral but also very specific legal responsibility for the messages we carry into society together with you. AI images, on the other hand, have no responsible sender. Their use therefore provokes mistrust, creates emotional distance, and hinders any open debate. All of this can have a negative impact on your products.
Do not leave the shaping of our cultural history and society to machines. Continue to take responsibility with us.
3. GENERATIVE AI IMAGES ARE UNETHICAL PRODUCTS
Generative AI systems require massive amounts of training data to function. This data base contains countless creative works of authors from all over the world who have not consented to this kind of use, who have not been informed about it, and who have not been compensated for it. This mass global copyright infringement has rightly been called “the biggest rip-off in human history.
In addition, the use of AI systems consumes vast amounts of energy. For example, generating a single AI image consumes the energy of half a cell phone charge. Overall, AI datacenters in Europe alone are expected to nearly triple their energy needs to more than 150 terawatt-hours by 2030. All to feed the growing energy appetite of their technology. (Source:
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/energie/kuenstliche-intelligenz- energieverbrauch-100.html)
Last but not least, imaging AI systems are seen as drivers of social ills. By favoring, copying, and simplifying the familiar, they promote stereotypes. Similar to unregulated social media channels, they reinforce mechanisms of exclusion such as racism, sexism, and ableism.
Illegal, klimaschädlich, ausgrenzend – mit diesen Labels möchte kein Unternehmen in Verbindung gebracht werden. Verhindern Sie deshalb gemeinsam mit uns, dass eine moralisch fragwürdige, unethische, in der Gesamtheit gefährliche Technologie jede Bemühung für mehr Nachhaltigkeit, Demokratie und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung Ihres Verlags und letztlich auch von uns allen untergräbt.
Illegal, climate-damaging, marginalizing – no company wants to be associated with these labels. So please join us in preventing a morally questionable, unethical, and generally dangerous technology from undermining the efforts of your publishing house, and ultimately all of us, to move toward greater sustainability, democracy, and social responsibility.
OUR APPEAL TO YOU:
Join us in setting the course for a just and secure future. Join us in taking a clear stand against the impending destruction of humanity and creativity in favor of soulless and irresponsible technology. Join us in preserving a world where people, not algorithms, determine our cultural identity.
Refrain from using generative AI imagery.
Board of the Illustrators Organization e.V.
