Description: Organizers of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards reportedly disqualified two fiction books after it was reportedly determined their cover illustrations were produced using AI-assisted tools, rendering the works ineligible under newly introduced award criteria. The publisher reportedly confirmed AI involvement in the jacket designs. The authors were not implicated in the artwork decisions but were nonetheless removed from consideration for the 2026 running.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown AI image generator developer developed an AI system deployed by Sugarcube Studios, which harmed Elizabeth Smither , Stephanie Johnson , Quentin Wilson Publishing , Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and Epistemic integrity.
Alleged implicated AI system: Unknown AI image generator
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1282
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2025-11-17
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Two books by distinguished authors have been ruled out of New Zealand's premier literary prize because their covers were generated with artificial intelligence.
Elizabeth Smither's Angel Train and Stephanie Johnson's Obligate Carnivore, bot…
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One book cover shows a cat with green eyes baring humanlike teeth. Another has an angel soaring above a yellow freight train.
The authors of the books, which were submitted to one of New Zealand's largest literary competitions, didn't know …
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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