{"slug": "unauthorized-ai-biographies-are-all-over-amazon", "title": "Unauthorized AI biographies are all over Amazon ↦", "summary": "Amazon is flooded with unauthorized AI-generated biographies, including one of New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill. The author of hundreds of such books, a retired cybersecurity consultant, said he uses AI because writing books manually \"doesn't make economic sense.\" The problem extends to Apple Books, where AI-generated knockoffs of a journalist's book recently appeared.", "body_md": "### by Dan Moren\n\n[Unauthorized AI biographies are all over Amazon](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/technology/ai-slop-books-biography-amazon.html)\n\nWriting at *The New York Times*, tech reporter Kashmir Hill [tells the strange story](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/technology/ai-slop-books-biography-amazon.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yVA.biRr._Vjq_fjGUuFP&smid=url-share) (NYT gift link) of coming across an AI-generated biography of herself on Amazon.\n\nTo 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:\n\nMr. 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.\n\n“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.”\n\n**stares directly into camera**\n\nLest 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](https://www.instagram.com/reels/DaD4nlGqMIm/).\n\nYou 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?\n\n-\nCould an AI write\n*that*metaphor? I mean. Maybe. But it didn’t.[↩](#fnref-40704-ai)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/unauthorized-ai-biographies-are-all-over-amazon", "canonical_source": "https://sixcolors.com/link/2026/07/unauthorized-ai-biographies-are-all-over-amazon/", "published_at": "2026-07-17 13:35:12+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-17 14:05:49.463371+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-products", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Amazon", "Apple Books", "Kashmir Hill", "New York Times", "Joanna Stern"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/unauthorized-ai-biographies-are-all-over-amazon", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/unauthorized-ai-biographies-are-all-over-amazon.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/unauthorized-ai-biographies-are-all-over-amazon.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/unauthorized-ai-biographies-are-all-over-amazon.jsonld"}}