AI-generated nonsensical books hit Amazon bestseller lists: Why is this a problem?

Dozens of AI-generated nonsensical books have made their way onto the Amazon Kindle Unlimited romance bestseller lists for teens and young adults. Even the titles of many of these books are meaningless: “Apricot bar code architecture,” “Jessica's Attention,” and others.

According to Vice, as of the morning of June 29, Amazon appears to have taken action on this matter, but this episode shows that people can upload AI-generated content to the platform and even find a way to monetize it.

“The AI bots have broken Amazon,” writer Caitlin Lynch tweeted. “Take a look at the Best Sellers in Teen & Young Adult Contemporary Romance eBooks top 100 chart. I can see 19 actual legit books. The rest are AI nonsense clearly there to click farm.”

On June 28, the publication examined dozens of apparently AI-created books. By June 29, most of them had fallen off the bestseller list, but they were still available for purchase on the platform.

The titles of fake books are something like “When the three attacks,” “The journey to becoming enlightened is arduous,” “Department of Vinh Du Stands in Front of His Parents’ Tombstone,” “The God Tu mutters,” “Ma La Er snorted scornfully” etc.

To some, these titles may even seem original or intriguing. And sometimes people actually buy them. For example, a book called "Wait you love me" as of the morning of June 28 was ranked 90th on the Top 100 Bestsellers list in the "Teen Contemporary Romance" category. The cover was a black and white photograph of a seagull with a neon yellow stripe stretched across it. The book has two reviews, both readers rated it one star, both called it "a fake book from artificial intelligence."

This whole situation can create many problems for human authors writing real books. First, nonsensical AI-generated books take places in the tops that should belong to real books. Secondly, readers may lose confidence in the resource and stop buying books and real authors who invest their time in writing them and who earn money by writing.