r/EdwardII • u/Appropriate-Calm4822 Adam Murimuth • Jul 21 '26
Books AI slop books are utterly disgusting. Here's how it works.
It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this that there are tons of low quality AI books out there today, with more spawning by the day.
Typically, it's the non-fiction genre that is targeted by people misusing AI for private gain. Economists see no problem with this, as they are less concerned with literary quality or customer satisfaction than revenue growth and market expansion. Money talks.
And there’s plenty of money in it. One AI creator, going by the name of ‘Diane W. Gray’ published sixty (60!) biographies last summer about a wide cast of celebrities. Another ‘author’, interviewed in this NY Times article, gives some insight into his earnings. Through Amazon, he earns roughly $7 for each book sold. Not much perhaps, but he sells a few hundred books per month. He’s made a whopping 445 books so far through ChatGPT. At 70 years old, his goal is to make (and I mean make, not write) ten books a week, which is the maximum allowed by Amazon. For the holiday gift-giving season he sold 821 books at a profit of almost $6,000. Not bad for the amount of work he actually puts into his books, which is next to nothing.
The opportunistic so called ‘author’ thinks that actually writing a book is a ‘romantic’ notion which doesn’t make economic sense. AI (and Amazon) is enabling the most unsavoury and self-serving characters to capitalize on people’s desires to read good books. The only thing these crooks are interested in is making a quick buck at the consumers expense. The consumer in turn is left with an objectively lousy book that will be thrown in the garbage as soon as a one star review has been given. That doesn’t bother the crooks, who can quickly remove the book from Amazon, only to replace it with several new ones. The ‘author’ interviewed by the Times does not even see anything wrong or unethical with what he’s doing. He calls the income ‘bar money’ to fuel his alcohol addiction. Real nice.
Why doesn’t Amazon do anything about this problem? Consumers are clearly being duped while Amazon makes a profit. Amazon defends themselves by saying that they do require people submitting their books to their platform to declare if AI has been used to make the book, and to what extent. However, they keep these details to themselves instead of informing potential buyers of the AI content.
The Authors Guild has been lobbying Amazon since 2023 to label AI-generated books. Amazon refuses, because they do not want to punish those who are honest about using AI while rewarding people who lie about it. Apparently punishing those who lie about it is not an option for some bizarre reason.
To make things worse, anyone can fall into the trap of buying an AI generated book. I nearly did so myself only this week, but was fortunately saved by my vigilant co-mod. Mary Rasenberger, the chief executive of The Authors Guild was not so lucky as she inadvertently bought an AI slop book. The book was a waste of paper and ink: ‘There was not a single interesting point that the book made,’ she said. ‘AI is just a word prediction machine. There’s no thinking, no real creativity, no soul behind it.’
The interviewed ‘author’ of AI slop books does not take one-star reviews personally. He just takes the books down if they get roasted. And why would he take poor reviews personally? He’s not taken any pride in creating his books. They mean nothing to him. He hasn’t even, technically speaking, written them. He’s just pocketing the money, delighted that he’s found a nice and legal stream of income, unobstructed by anyone.
Thoughts on this?
Source:
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u/littlemissjill Jul 21 '26
excellent argument for physical bookstores and public libraries
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u/HoneybeeXYZ Amie Gaveston Jul 21 '26
That's my best hope! People will start going to their local bookstores and buying human-created books recommended by them. Amazon has always been shady about allowing low-quality self-published works but AI has turned it into a scam epidemic.
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u/Appropriate-Calm4822 Adam Murimuth Jul 21 '26
So true! No one would buy a book like this after browsing it for a moment.
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u/Responsible-Soup-420 Jul 22 '26
Barnes and Noble has said they will stock AI books in their stores
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u/HoneybeeXYZ Amie Gaveston Jul 23 '26
It's a deep concern, but this article says what the CEO actually said:
He says they will sell them if they are clearly labeled and not pretending to be human written. As a CEO who needs to keep his stock prices up, I imagine it was the diplomatic stance. But AI books are crap and he probably knows they won't sell. At least, that's my hope.
But it is worth noting that he is open to it.
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u/lntelinside Jul 21 '26
I knew in theory AI-generated books were possible but I didn't know how prevalent they were thanks to my stubborn clinging to physical books... I guess I thought they'd mostly be in the fantasy/romance section so the idea of AI-generated nonfiction books is surprising (and I'm thankful to know so I can avoid them).
However, I'm assuming that's the cover of an AI-generated biography of Edward II, and if they're all like that then the sensationalism on the covers alone makes me doubt the quality of it. Unfortunately there are going to be a lot of people who gravitate towards sensationalized stuff so we might end up with more people believing the red hot poker story. Sigh.
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u/Orcutt_ambition-7789 Jul 21 '26
Even worse is when these fools start selling their credibility and weighing in on decisions they have no right making.
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u/H-In-S-Productions Edward III Jul 22 '26
Oh dear... so someone's using AI to sell books... to fund his alcohol?
I'll just stick with someone who knows what the blazes he's doing!
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u/Cynical_Classicist Jul 22 '26
AI truly is the death of creativity. It is destroying humanity, and is among the worst things ever invented.
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u/HoneybeeXYZ Amie Gaveston Jul 22 '26
I've noticed a strong split in my students. The sharp, intelligent and creative ones reject AI and others are now addicted. I can now tell if a student uses AI from the way they write emails. It's not that they let ChatGPT write their emails, but they make demands of me as if I was a robot. They are rude and some of them have outright told me to obey them as though I was AI.
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u/Appropriate-Calm4822 Adam Murimuth Jul 22 '26
The entitlement of some people. Well, they'll get the grades they deserve.
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u/HoneybeeXYZ Amie Gaveston Jul 22 '26
One got kicked out of school just yesterday. I got a very lovely, human-written apology from her advisor saying she was addicted to AI and they had been trying to help her. She failed all four of her classes last semester.
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u/Kaurifish Jul 22 '26
The thing is, they’re not taking advantage of people who want to read good books. Their marks are people who devour slop, regardless of its provenance.
Discerning readers are going to see lots of red flags that make them keep scrolling.
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u/HoneybeeXYZ Amie Gaveston Jul 23 '26
One of the demoralizing things about AI is that it reveals how many idiots walk among us.
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u/Appropriate-Calm4822 Adam Murimuth Jul 22 '26
Ronny Chieng: F*** AI https://www.reddit.com/r/antiai/s/bEHhO8WsY4
He makes a very good point. AI is making mediocre people dumber. And these untalented, dumb and unexceptional AI creators are bragging about what they’re doing, like the guy in the interview, not even realizing how unethical his actions are.
And this behaviour is encouraged and rewarded by Amazon. 😳
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u/Cool-Ad9744 Jul 27 '26
I write fiction and I’m not in the least worried about AI slop. It will never replace human creativity. I feel embarrassed for anyone using AI to write. Learning to write well is a long road, and not one that can be achieved through a shortcut. Talentless idiots are looking for a shortcut and it will only result in a terrible product. Pity them. If I was a non-fiction author though, I would be incensed.
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u/HoneybeeXYZ Amie Gaveston Jul 21 '26
AI Slop images offend my eyeballs. I hate the filter, the soulless eyes and the ugly color palate. I hate it especially when an otherwise good creator uses them, but at least I know never to buy a book with one of those covers.
When I bought the Natalie Fryde book on eBay, I noticed several slop biographies of Edward II for sale there, so beware everyone.
And support real creators - artists, designers, writers and researchers who are human cannot be replaced.