AI chaos comes to publishing

You know that people use AI (Artificial Intelligence) to write new books.

They also use language models like ChatGPT to generate fake installments in pre-existing book series. Many authors have woken up to questions about sequels they never wrote.

The goal is to capitalize on audience stupidity. You might be surprised by the number of people who will read The Winds of Winter by George R.R. Martin without stopping to question why the latest Game of Thrones novel was released with so little fanfare.

To clarify, Martin has yet to publish The Winds of Winter. But AI versions of the novel exist. This brings us to the most nefarious aspect of AI: book imitations. Imagine writing a book titled The Life and Times of a Ugandan Night Dancer. You worked tirelessly for several years to pen the manuscript, then sunk millions into editing, proofreading, and the cover art.

Finally, you published your book and audiences lapped it up. Then a week later, noticing the growing interest in your manuscript, I also published The Life and Times of a Ugandan Night Dancer, but with my name on the cover. Many readers who search for that book title would not hesitate to buy my version.

They would not realize their mistake until they opened the memoir and saw the nonsense within. Now, if you are lucky, the readers in question will know where they went wrong. If not, a bad AI imitation will destroy your reputation. Why? Because scammers use AI to rewrite these books and those AI systems are prone to mistakes.

Some scammers attempt to sidestep the legal complexities surrounding their activities by describing their manuscripts as summaries of pre-existing books. But that argument falls apart because they typically re-write every page of the pre-existing book. The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang is one of the most recent victims of this trend.

If you recently bought a version of this novel with the name ‘M.R. Dalen’ on the cover, you should ask for a refund. And if you have written any successful books in recent months or years, I encourage you to do a cursory Google search every so often to ensure that every version of your book on the market is genuine.

So, as a consumer, how can you avoid these fake AI imitations? Pay attention to the author’s name. Apparently, copyright does not protect book titles. Unless you trademark your book’s title, you can’t prevent anyone from using it.

Therefore, make sure the book title and author name match. Some people use special programs to detect AI content. Popular platforms like Grammarly provide this feature. Additionally, sites like Amazon allow consumers to read samples and excerpts from the books they want
to buy.

Why does that matter? Because AI tools have a robotic and overly consistent tone that gives them away. Avoid books that don’t offer samples. Admittedly, that aspect only matters if you read regularly. If you don’t know what an organic writing style from a real human looks like, you won’t know how to identify its artificial counterpart.

That leaves the reviews as your only recourse. Generally speaking, readers are considerate people in this regard. If they are unlucky enough to buy an AI imitation, they will use their reviews to warn future readers. If you rarely read book reviews before making a purchase, this is a good time to start. AI is still in its infancy. You won’t fall for fake AI imitations unless you are lazy.

katmic200@gmail.com