Nonfiction Views: AI-generated slop books, and some real…

Technology journalist Kashmir Hill recently uncovered a 90-page AI-generated biography of herself available for purchase on Amazon. This discovery highlighted a broader trend of low-effort, AI-authored books flooding the marketplace, raising questions about the content quality and the creators behind these publications.

What happened

The biography of Kashmir Hill was composed of widely available internet facts mixed with generic, inaccurate insights, including an incorrect description of her coffee-making ritual. The author, listed as John Crane Miller, had published ten other biographies of journalists in the same week. The author photo associated with Miller was identified as a widely used stock image of a white man in a suit. When Hill attempted to contact the author through an Amazon review, his entire library of books disappeared from the platform, leaving only the author page. The incident serves as an example of how generative AI tools are being used to churn out mass-produced content, a phenomenon that has seen a significant increase in self-published titles on Amazon since the advent of ChatGPT. While some researchers, such as philosopher Eamon Duede, argue that AI-generated content can provide creative satisfaction for users, the proliferation of these books has been described as a pollution of the retail ecosystem.