by Dan Moren
Unauthorized AI biographies are all over Amazon Writing at The New York Times, tech reporter Kashmir Hill tells the strange story (NYT gift link) of coming across an AI-generated biography of herself on Amazon.
To me, the sobering part is when Hill, unable to track down the source of her own biography, talks to an “author” of hundreds of AI books:
Mr. Johns, who has long curly white hair and the bronzed skin of someone who spends a considerable amount of time outside, retired in 2024 from his work as a cybersecurity consultant. Divorced and living alone with two Shih Tzus, he suddenly had a lot of time on his hands. He was curious about A.I. and decided to experiment with it.
“Almost everyone I know says they want to write a book,” he said. “It’s a very romantic concept to sit down and toil, page after page and paragraph after paragraph, but it doesn’t make economic sense.”
stares directly into camera
Lest you think this exclusively an Amazon problem, this comes just a few weeks after Joanna Stern’s story of AI-generated knockoffs of her book on Apple Books.
You know, it’s hard enough making any sort of living as a writer, but crowding the field with AI slop? It’s not even as if people are buying them and reviewing them favorably. They’re just old socks stuffed down the drain, clogging up the sink with putrid water. 1 What are we even doing here, people?
Could an AI write thatmetaphor? I mean. Maybe. But it didn’t.↩