pureatz

1 How an AI written Book Shows why the Tech 'Terrifies' Creatives

For nerdgaming.science Christmas I got an interesting gift from a buddy - my very own "very popular" book.

"Tech-Splaining for Dummies" (terrific title) bears my name and my photo on its cover, and it has glowing evaluations.

Yet it was entirely written by AI, with a couple of easy prompts about me provided by my friend Janet.

It's a fascinating read, and uproarious in parts. But it likewise meanders rather a lot, and is someplace between a self-help book and a stream of anecdotes.

It mimics my chatty style of composing, however it's likewise a bit repeated, and very verbose. It might have gone beyond Janet's triggers in collecting data about me.

Several sentences begin "as a leading technology journalist ..." - cringe - which could have been scraped from an online bio.

There's also a mysterious, repeated hallucination in the form of my feline (I have no animals). And there's a metaphor wiki.tld-wars.space on nearly every page - some more random than others.

There are dozens of companies online offering AI -book composing services. My book was from BookByAnyone.

When I got in touch with the primary executive Adir Mashiach, based in Israel, he told me he had offered around 150,000 customised books, generally in the US, pipewiki.org given that pivoting from putting together AI-generated travel guides in June 2024.

A paperback copy of your own 240-page long best-seller costs ₤ 26. The company utilizes its own AI tools to create them, utahsyardsale.com based on an open source large language model.

I'm not asking you to buy my book. Actually you can't - only Janet, who developed it, can purchase any additional copies.

There is presently no barrier to anybody creating one in any person's name, consisting of stars - although Mr Mashiach says there are guardrails around violent content. Each book consists of a printed disclaimer specifying that it is fictional, produced by AI, and designed "exclusively to bring humour and happiness".

Legally, the copyright belongs to the company, but Mr Mashiach worries that the item is planned as a "personalised gag present", and the books do not get sold further.

He intends to widen his range, creating different genres such as sci-fi, and possibly offering an autobiography service. It's developed to be a light-hearted form of customer AI - selling AI-generated products to human clients.

It's also a bit frightening if, like me, you write for [smfsimple.com](https://www.smfsimple.com/ultimateportaldemo/index.php?action=profile