I have been asked, and the answer is yes: All of the artwork in this book is AI Generated.
I walked into writing this book with a budget of $0 and am currently at -$35 dollars (I spent a tiny bit of money on advertising). All of the artwork is provided by the Midjourney AI. The Fonts and Backgrounds are free-use with credit to their creators, as well. Specifically Swordmeow, the artist of the page backgrounds and watercolors themselves, and Jason Ondricek, who maintains the online archive that provided their access.
Ultimately there are several reasons I chose to use AI artwork.
1) Broke. I literally had no money to put towards art and no skill with creating artworks.
2) Very Specific Ideas. Yes, there are free art packs out there in the world, and public domain works are abundant. None of them matched my ideal, my hopes, my specific mental image of what these things should look like. Selfish, for sure, but at least I'm honest about it.
3) I was woefully unaware of the unethical nature of most dataset collections for AI art. Whether through innocent lack of exposure or avoiding it subconsciously I didn't know until late in the process that AI art often scraped digital imagery directly. Even to the point of copying signatures and watermarks.
I would 100% understand and agree with anyone who refused to pay money for this product on that basis, alone. That is a healthy moral stance to take. I get it. And have chosen to continue to produce this product. Aware of the ethical mire I am in, and the divisive nature of my choice, I accept any repercussion thereof.