This week, a self-published author observed that books on Kindle Unlimited written by machines and packed with nonsense were dominating Amazon’s numerous bestselling lists. On Monday, author Caitlyn Lynch shared her findings on Twitter.
There are supposedly a ton of books produced by artificial intelligence (AI) on Amazon Kindle. Recently, a number of authors have seen a notable increase in the number of AI-generated novels appearing on best-seller lists. It claims that many of them seem to be rubbish.
“The AI bots have broken Amazon. 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,” Lynch wrote in her tweet.
The AI bots have broken Amazon.
Take a look at the Best Sellers in Teen & Young Adult Contemporary Romance eBooks top 100 chart.
I can see 19 actual legit books.https://t.co/fy9rtV6Ck6
The rest are AI nonsense clearly there to click farm.@AmazonKDP what are you doing about it? pic.twitter.com/cziuKcQrq3— Caitlyn Lynch aka Catherine Bilson (@caitlynlynch6) June 26, 2023
AI-generated books have conquered Amazon
Recently, authors and a number of media sources have observed a noticeable increase in the number of AI-generated books that are appearing on various best-seller lists, many of which seem to be complete gibberish.
Self-publishing, like doing so through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Program, has developed into a method for many real authors to reach readers and gain a following without the aid of a major publisher.
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It appears that anybody may create many AI-written books, submit them to be sold on Amazon’s eBook store, and make them accessible for reading via Kindle Unlimited because these self-publishing features are designed to be simple to sign up for.
According to Tech Radar, the Motherload website later investigated hundreds of books on the platform and discovered that the AI books disappeared from the best-seller rankings a few days following Lynch’s tweets, most likely due to Amazon’s removal.
However, they were still for sale, and before they vanished, they had received a lot of visibility. Additionally, as Lynch very logically hypothesizes, the widespread uploading of AI-generated books might be used to aid click-farming, in which ‘bots’ automatically read pages from a book in order to receive royalties from Amazon Kindle Unlimited, which pays writers according to the number of pages that are read in an ebook.
Therefore, it is irrelevant if these books vanish. To replace the ones that were removed, the individuals running the scam might just upload as many as they want.
Amazon’s response
According to Tech Radar’s article, when Motherboard contacted Amazon, the online retailer said that it had “clear guidelines” for what books might be placed for sale. Amazon further stated that it will look into any complaints in order to safeguard both readers and writers.
We invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and to protect customers and authors from abuse. We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised. We invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and to protect customers and authors from abuse.
Amazon spokesperson
Not entirely new, AI-generated and aided books appeared shortly following the introduction of text- and image-generating AI systems like ChatGPT and Midjourney. These publications were already divisive since many artists and writers believed that they mocked the effort it takes to compile, write, and publish a book.
In addition, a lot of the text and image information that AI generators use comes from the internet and was created without the permission of the original authors.
Fake reviews are another significant issue that continues to plague Amazon and other online markets for a variety of things, including books. Text artificial intelligence (AI) generators make this worse by making it simpler to overwrite a review section with information. Check out our advice on how to identify false Amazon reviews as Prime Day approaches.
Featured image credit: Gleyvison Anselmo on Unsplash
