CHEF AMADEO ROSELYN

I have a distinct image of my main character of All Is Lost. This is as close as AI can get to him, which means it’s less my image of ugly, small, belligerent Amadeo Roselyn than it would be a casting director’s for the filmed version of my novel. Filmed versions almost always balk at realistically depicting characters described in books as “ugly.” I’ve yet to see Marian Halcombe depicted in movies as Collins describes her in The Woman in White, and Peter Dinklage, as great as his performance was, does not fit the image of Tyrion Lannister I got from the books. My Amadeo is not as square-jawed, and certainly not as humorless as the slightly Byronic image AI came up with.

There’s a lot of talk about AI online these days, and justifiable controversy over AI art possibly supplanting the paid work of artists. All I can say is that subtlety doesn’t seem to be its strong suit, and I find it fairly easy to spot. If I were to ever have the option of an illustrated version, I’d entrust the work to a human being who can understand things like “nuance.”