Authors that don’t exist, fake reviews, scanty and questionable content…

A.I. generated content and the rise of self-publication has led to a wave of scam books

The New York Times published an article this week detailing their investigation into a new sort of scam:  “shoddy guidebooks”, and how they are proliferating on Amazon.  Although primarily focused on Travel Guides, their investigation found similar titles in cooking, self-help, gardening, business, novels – categories across the board.

Seemingly created with A.I. Generated text and free stock images, these books claim to be written by authors whose names and bios are strikingly similar to well known and trusted authors; but whose portraits are A.I. generated and of whom no other trace can be found.  Bolstered by false claims about the included content and loads of phony 5-star reviews, some of these books end up highly rated on Amazon search results – going beyond being just poorly written wastes of money, to a full-on scam.

Edited to add: It’s not in this article, but I’ve recently found that one of the topics these books have been proliferating in is guides for foraging wild mushrooms – which is one case where if the content is at all incorrect, someone could get very sick, or possibly killed!

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