Steven Symes

There’s been plenty of talk these days about AI and it’s strengths as well as foibles, but a new threat has emerged in the publishing world. Some authors have been shocked to learn their good names they’ve built up over years of producing quality work have been applied to slop generated by AI.

Certain individuals who work in the shadows have realized they can sell almost literal garbage books that they get Chat GPT or some other artificial intelligence to write simply by slapping a famous author’s name on the cover.

That’s where the term “AI deepfake books” comes from and it seems to be a growing problem. For now, it’s an issue exclusively on Amazon, from everything I’ve seen, thanks to the self-publishing platform the online retailer offers, Kindle Direct Publishing.

While that tool has allowed plenty of authors, big and small, to publish their works directly onto the Amazon site, there are always people looking to exploit innovations for their unethical gain. In this case, it’s a scheme that involves separating hardworking people from their money with the promise of a book by a famous author, only for them to receive one hundred pages of slop.

Working in the publishing industry, I have personally run across this type of mentality, especially by those who claim they have no possibility of reaching the upper echelons of the craft. They argue that because their activity is technically legal it’s therefore ethical and even moral, even though it’s clearly fraud.

This issue was brought to light in a big way back in early August when author Jane Friedman posted about it on social media. One of her posts on X reached an audience of 1.5 million, spreading awareness of AI deepfake books like never before.

She even educated people who argued that piracy has been a problem in the publishing industry for decades and can work to benefit writers. They didn’t seem to understand this new scam is far more damaging. Considering it has the potential to mar a writer’s reputation, make people more hesitant to buy books, and sow confusion in the industry.

This also happened to News Nation host Leland Vittert. Fraudsters have published versions of his best-selling book Born Lucky, leading to disappointment for readers after they realize they’ve been had.

The big question is what to do about this problem? Friedman wrote a post on her own author site, arguing that Amazon and Goodreads need to erect “guardrails” to protect against both “misattribution and misinformation.” She believes the two should have some system for verifying the authorship of every book published.

How would that work? And would this solution lead to other, different problems? I’m not sure about either question, but it does seem something needs to be done about obvious fraud when it comes to AI deepfake books.

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