Date:
February 22, 2023
ChatGPT is listed as the author of at least 200 books on Amazon's Kindle Store, with the actual number of bot-written books likely much higher than reported
The Kindle Store now boasts a prolific new author: ChatGPT.
According to Reuters, the AI bot is credited with authoring or co-authoring at least 200 books on Amazon’s storefront. However, Amazon’s policies do not require authors to disclose their use of AI, so the actual number of bot-written books is likely much higher.
This is the latest example of AI-generated writing flooding the market and contributing to ethically dubious content creation since OpenAI’s free tool was released in November. As more and more people are using AI to write books, ethical concerns about transparency, plagiarism, and misinformation are on the rise.
Mary Rasenberger, the executive director of the Authors Guild, warns that these bot-written books will flood the market, putting many authors out of work. Meanwhile, Clarkesworld Magazine has temporarily halted short-story submissions after receiving a flood of articles suspected of using AI without disclosure, leading to concerns about credibility, and the possibility of making a quick buck.
In addition to the standalone ChatGPT tool, Microsoft’s new version of Bing uses a more advanced version of the tool to help with search queries. It is imperative that there is transparency from authors and platforms about how these books are created, or there will be a lot of low-quality books.
