In a blow to authors and readers alike, there has been a noticeable surge in the presence of AI-written books on best-seller lists, as reported by numerous news outlets and authors recently. This phenomenon has raised questions about the credibility and legitimacy of many eBooks booming in popularity.
Platforms like Amazon's Kindle Direct Program have offered a unique opportunity for authors to self-publish their works and gain a readership independently of large publishing houses. However, the intentional low entry barriers to these platforms also mean that virtually anyone can publish AI-composed pieces in the form of readily available eBooks on Amazon's marketplace, also eligible to be read via Kindle Unlimited.
An independent author, Caitlyn Lynch, recently raised an alarm on Twitter about the questionable quality of best-sellers in the Teen & Young Adult Contemporary Romance eBooks category on Amazon. Only 19 out of the top 100 eBooks were found to be genuine works, while the rest appeared to be nonsensical and incoherent products most likely of AI-generation.
The online portal Motherload undertook an inspection of many books published on the platform, communicating through their findings that shortly after Lynch's tweets, the presence of the AI-authored books on the best-seller lists became negligible. It is reasonable to deduce that Amazon promptly acted upon the issue. However, these books were still in circulation and available for purchase, having garnered considerable visibility before their removal.
Lynch presumes that such nefarious orchestration can be linked to click-farming schemes. Here, 'bots' click through a book, generating royalties from Amazon Kindle Unlimited, which calculates payments to authors on a per-page-read basis. Despite their banishment, the culprits behind these schemes can reproduce and upload a limitless number of such eBooks to replace the deleted ones.
This raises a significant issue for both authors and readers alike. We, as readers, prefer human-written works, and the inundation of AI-authored books makes finding such works increasingly challenging. Echoing these sentiments, Lynch, in a series of tweets, articulated that this could potentially sound the death knell for Kindle Unlimited if Amazon fails to intervene timely.
Motherboard approached Amazon to hear their side of the story. Amazon clarified their adherence to “clear guidelines” regarding book listings and vowed to investigate complaints to safeguard the interests of both readers and writers. However, no explicit measures were mentioned regarding the repeated uploading of unintelligible and nonsense AI-crafted books that are spam-like in nature.
Consequently, it's vital that Amazon embarks on concretive steps to reconcile this issue, reaffirming readers' faith in the support of authors through eBook sales and page views (which coincide with author royalties on Kindle Unlimited). Moreover, it's crucial that authors feel secure about placing their work for sale on Amazon, which is known for its commitment to user-based platforms.
In relation, platforms like AppMaster, which offer a hands-on, customizable approach to creating applications, allow for a more controlled ecosystem as they generate applications based on user-defined blueprints. This adds a layer of authenticity and legitimacy to the output, as opposed to AI-generated content which can flood platforms like Kindle, resulting in loss of user confidence.
