AI Floods Amazon With Strange Political Books Before Canadian Election (msn.com) 20
An anonymous reader shares a report: Canada has seen a boom in political books created with generative artificial intelligence, adding to concerns about how new technologies are affecting the information voters receive during the election campaign.
Prime Minister Mark Carney was the subject of at least 16 books published in March and listed on Amazon.com, according to a review of the site on April 16. Five of those were published on a single day. In total, some 30 titles were published about Carney this year and made available on Amazon -- but most were taken down from the site after inquiries from Bloomberg News.
One author, James A. Powell, put his name to at least three books about the former central banker, who's now leading the Liberal Party and is narrowly favored to win the election. Among the titles that Amazon removed: "Carney's Code: Climate Capitalism, Digital Currencies, and the Technocratic Takeover of the Global Economy -- Inside Mark Carney's Blueprint for the Post-Democratic World."
Prime Minister Mark Carney was the subject of at least 16 books published in March and listed on Amazon.com, according to a review of the site on April 16. Five of those were published on a single day. In total, some 30 titles were published about Carney this year and made available on Amazon -- but most were taken down from the site after inquiries from Bloomberg News.
One author, James A. Powell, put his name to at least three books about the former central banker, who's now leading the Liberal Party and is narrowly favored to win the election. Among the titles that Amazon removed: "Carney's Code: Climate Capitalism, Digital Currencies, and the Technocratic Takeover of the Global Economy -- Inside Mark Carney's Blueprint for the Post-Democratic World."
Pride goeth before the fall (Score:3)
"floods Amazon" (Score:2)
Not the way to start a sentence about the non-river-Amazon if you don't want to confuse your readers.
I'd like to know the percentages (Score:3)
What is the proportion of opportunistic garbage generated just to make a sale while the subject is hot due to the election compared to propaganda books - and because it's likely at least one is a liberal propaganda book, let's get the split between liberal and conservative propaganda while we're at it.
My gut says it's mostly crap designed in hopes of easy sales without a political agenda, but my gut also says it's stupid to listen to my gut about this subject.
Re:I'd like to know the percentages (Score:5, Interesting)
As low effort as having an LLM generate book, especially for electronic distribution would be. - I would be shocked if both things are not going on.
There is a entire cottage industry around using vanity press to print and sell out-of-copyright classics on Amazon. Some of them are pretty nice. I got a Leatherstocking Tales volume bound in leather on quality paper, but if you look up the publisher the address is a residence in FL.
These people grab some public domain art work and text decorations, hire out making a few hundred copies of some classic, mark it up some percentage, can't be much really, and ship retail them on Amazon, etc, shopify etc.
The poorly researched, even more poorly written, intentionally slated and inflammatory 'instant book' about political figures has been a fixture of second half 20th century campaigns. Often to just make a quick buck but also churned out by campaign surrogates to see if they can move the needles even a little, isn't new. AI just makes it even easier.
Re: (Score:2)
In related news... (Score:4, Informative)
Russia's 'Pravda' Disinformation Network is Poisoning Western AI Models [enterprise...tytech.com]
How many are just scams? (Score:2)
ISTM that it's plausible that a lot of the books can be ordered, and what you get isn't much like what you thought you ordered.
Re: I Have Some Questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Some {one, thing} copied the style and wrote a sequel... it was not my friend, the original author. Shock all around.
Looks to me like stealing other people's intellectual property and even writing style is so cheap that it's a businesses model now.
Re: (Score:3)
1) How did anyone know those books exist?
Amazon search.
Without a coordinated and rather expensive marketing campaign, nobody ever would have found those titles.
The Canadian election serves as that "rather expensive marketing campaign."
2) No, they wouldn't have found them in search either.
Yes they would. That's how search works. Particularly works that are optimized for search engine visibility, and get hits much better than actual books written by humans to be informative rather than to optimize hits.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope.
Amazon doesn't have even a fraction of the manpower that would be needed to have a human look at all the books dumped onto the platform. Humans may be involved in "picking the winners" for the top sellers, which indeed drives the vast majority of book sales. But these books aren't going for best-seller levels of sales. Since they cost nearly nothing to write (compared to books written by humans), they can make a profit scavaging the bottom of the market-- the "long tail" in marketing-lingo. For the lo
AI flooded it? Really? (Score:2)
AI did the flooding? Not humans, using AI? AI created them, registered them and uploaded them?
Why does the headline team at /. have to be so comically bad?
Consider the source (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would anyone trust a statement about anything that isn't authored by someone known who is knowledgeable on the subject?
Poor, or absent, critical thinking skills.
Re: (Score:2)
Specifically, you need to lead with something the audience wants to hear. Then it won't matter if people *can* think critically, because they won't *want* to.
Re: (Score:2)
Because they're told, "Of course, the author is highly knowledgeable on the subject," and they don't know any different. They don't know who is or is not known in the field. Or they're told lies about how it is by someone who *is* known in the field, and can't check it (or checking it is too much effort).
Re: (Score:3)
Because it says what they want to hear.