Mar 04, 2024 12:10:00

The number of ``low-quality biographies generated by AI'' is rapidly increasing on Amazon, and Amazon has started restricting the publication of some genres to stop the flood of AI-generated books

On February 27, 2024, veteran technology journalist

Kara Swisher 's memoir Burn Book was released. Shortly before this book was released, it was reported that a large amount of ``AI-generated biography of Mr. Swisher'' was being published on Amazon.

AI-Generated Kara Swisher Biographies Flood Amazon
https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-kara-swisher-biographies-flood-amazon/

Kara Swisher among authors decrying AI-generated books on Amazon - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/01/amazon-ai-fake-books-authors/

AI Grifters Fill Amazon With Kara Swisher Memoir Ripoffs
https://gizmodo.com/ai-grifters-fill-amazon-with-kara-swisher-memoir-ripoff-1851293150

Swisher's memoir, ``Burn Book,'' chronicles his decades-long career covering Silicon Valley technology companies and tells the story of the founders of technology companies that have had an enormous impact on the world. It also includes behind-the-scenes stories.

A few weeks before the release of ``Burn Book'', Mr. Swisher's wife noticed that ``a book claiming to be Mr. Swisher's biography'' whose cover image was apparently generated by AI had been released. The author is a person unknown to Mr. Swisher, the content of the book is mostly or entirely generated by AI, and it seems that he only stated general facts known about Mr. Swisher.

Mr. Swisher temporarily left the books generated by AI alone, but when he checked again after the release of ``Burn Book'', the number of ``Swisher's spammy clone biographies'' had rapidly increased to dozens. Although each book has a different title and author, the cover uses an AI-generated image of Mr. Swisher. 'There were dozens of fake books out there,' Swisher said. 'I thought, 'What is going on with Amazon? Why isn't Amazon stopping this?'' .

This is an example of ``Mr. Swisher's fake biography'' actually discovered by web media 404 Media. The title is ``Kara Swisher: Silicon Valley's Bulldog (A Biography)'' and the author is ``Jane Coelho,'' but the woman on the cover is different from Mr. Swisher. This person named ``Jane Coelho'' also published biographies of British politician

Laurie Stewart and actor Tom Selleck in 2024.

In addition, the author 'Cheryl J Stackhouse' published a biography of Mr. Swisher called 'Kara Swisher Book: How She Became Silicon Valley's Most Influential Journalist'. 'Cheryl J Stackhouse' has published 23 biographies in 2024 alone, including the president of Ukraine

, Volodymyr Zelensky, and former head of the Rothschild family , Jacob Roth, who died on February 26, 2024. It seems that Mr. Child 's was also included.

In response to this situation, Mr. Swisher complained by email directly to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who he had interviewed many times. As a result, at the time of writing the article, most of Mr. Swisher's biographies generated by AI were deleted, but many other biographies by the same author are still being sold. Also, most authors, like Swisher, don't have direct access to Amazon executives. Swisher said: 'What I'm saying is, 'You're doing it for me, you're watching over the books, so why can't you do the same for everyone else?' ”.

Amazon does not prohibit users from selling AI-generated books, but it does prohibit the sale of books that infringe on intellectual property rights, are misleading, or are of extremely low quality. . 'We aim to provide the best shopping, reading, and publishing experience possible, and we are committed to providing the best shopping, reading, and publishing experience possible, and we are constantly changing the way we impact that experience, including the rapid evolution and expansion of generative AI tools,' said Lindsay Hamilton, an Amazon spokesperson. We always evaluate developments that give us the best possible results.' In its latest step to restrict spam books, Amazon has begun restricting the publication of books that claim to be ``summaries'' or ``workbooks'' written by humans.

In recent years, the rapid increase in AI-generated books on Amazon has been viewed as a problem, and in August 2023, it was reported that ``unrelated people are selling AI-generated books on Amazon by impersonating real authors.'' With the Authors Association of America taking action on this matter, Amazon has finally started taking measures such as updating the content guidelines for its self-publishing service ``Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)''.

Amazon, which had been silent about ``garbage books'' written by AI and sold under other people's names, takes a heavy stance in response to the writer's union's appeal - GIGAZINE

The Authors Guild, an industry group for authors, is urging Amazon to disclose AI-generated books on its platform. In addition, a bill submitted by Democratic Senator Brian Schatz at the end of 2023 requires AI development companies to add a ``mark to indicate that it is AI-generated'' to the content generated by their AI.

Journalist Byron Tau, who has had low-quality AI-generated biographies published in the past, said: ``I hope Amazon finds a way to crack down on this behavior, because what AI-generated biographies actually are?'' It devalues the work of the people who spend years researching and writing the books. This is because the Amazon system we all depend on is extremely vulnerable to gamification. It shows,” he said.