For Christmas I got a fascinating gift from a buddy - my very own "very popular" book.
"Tech-Splaining for Dummies" (great title) bears my name and my picture on its cover, and it has glowing evaluations.
Yet it was completely composed by AI, with a couple of simple prompts about me provided by my pal Janet.
It's an intriguing read, and extremely funny in parts. But it likewise meanders rather a lot, and is somewhere between a self-help book and a stream of anecdotes.
It imitates my chatty style of writing, however it's also a bit recurring, wikitravel.org and really verbose. It might have exceeded Janet's prompts in looking at data about me.
Several sentences begin "as a leading technology journalist ..." - cringe - which might have been scraped from an online bio.
There's likewise a mysterious, repeated hallucination in the form of my cat (I have no pets). And there's a metaphor on nearly every page - some more random than others.
There are lots of business online offering AI-book writing services. My book was from BookByAnyone.
When I contacted the president Adir Mashiach, based in Israel, he informed me he had actually offered around 150,000 personalised books, generally in the US, because rotating from compiling AI-generated travel guides in June 2024.
A paperback copy of your own 240-page long best-seller costs ₤ 26. The company uses its own AI tools to create them, based upon an open source large language design.
I'm not asking you to purchase my book. Actually you can't - only Janet, who created it, can order any more copies.
There is currently no barrier to anyone producing one in anybody's name, consisting of stars - although Mr Mashiach says there are guardrails around abusive material. Each book includes a printed disclaimer specifying that it is fictional, produced by AI, and designed "exclusively to bring humour and happiness".
Legally, the copyright comes from the company, however Mr Mashiach worries that the product is meant as a "personalised gag gift", and the books do not get offered even more.
He hopes to expand his range, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile
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How an AI written Book Shows why the Tech 'Horrifies' Creatives
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