Authors dumped from New Zealand's top book prize after AI used in cover designs (theguardian.com)

These two books just got more attention than the winner of whatever that article was about, so great job!

In my opinion having a hard line on AI use is fair, so I don't have an issue with that, but I think the awards committee messed up by putting out the guidelines so late. That said, I also think the publishers messed up big time by putting AI slop on the covers of these books...I mean they have to know that's repulsive to a large segment of the population, right? It's especially unfortunate because authors rarely have much input at all in designing the book covers, so in their enthusiasm to ride this hype train and I guess save a few bucks on graphic design, the publisher screwed over these authors.