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I'm sorry, but both the Anti-AI and Pro-AI crowd annoy the FUCK out of me. Also, who gives a fuck? Definitely not me because it's not hurting me, it's not hurting me at all. If you wanna generate images for you book covers or your OCs, then go for it because those people you asked on Reddit are fucking hypocrites. You're using AI to generate images for you fanfic and nothing else, it's not like you're using it to make a profit off it. As long as you don't claim them as your own work, then you're good.
You have people ripping off images from Pinterest, editng them, and then applying them to book covers. Hell, you even have people ripping off someone else's artwork of characters from Pinterest and claiming them as OCs, it's all crickets. But as soon as somebody takes an A.I generated image, whether it's for a book cover or to use as an OC, all hell breaks loose. Everyone loses their fucking minds.
If drawing and recoloring over other people's artwork of characters to create OCs wasn't considered art theft, then I'm genuinely confused how generating OCs through Ai art is art theft.
And if you lose readers just for simply using AI to generate images of your OCs, that's their loss. You can always gain new ones, trust me.