This blog post, written by members of the Library's Information Integrity Team, is part of a series that covers disinformation and other related subjects. The goal is to help create a well-informed citizenry of active participants who shape our world.
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is booming.
It’s everywhere: the internet, videos, images (sometimes strange and disturbing), and, inevitably, in books. According to Forbes Magazine (September 20, 2024), online AI-generated content increased 187% between November 2022 to January 2023. A year later, internet AI content increased 2,848%. It can be hard to figure out when content is created by a human and when it is created by ChatGBT or other similar tools.
AI Slop is the term used to describe the cheap and poorly researched books produced by AI.
Search Amazon or Hoopla (a company that supplies eBooks for this and many other libraries) and you will rapidly find books that are passing themselves off as researched and written by humans—but are produced by AI. Hoopla is now working to remove the AI-generated content, partly in response to this article: AI-Generated Slop is Already in Your Public Library (404 Media, February 4, 2025) by Emanuel Malberg, and in response to requests made by libraries.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter if what you are reading was written by a bot. Reading a badly written thriller isn’t the end of the world. But if you are downloading a field guide to mushrooms, for example, it can be a matter of life and death. Imagine that you need health or legal help—these are situations where getting accurate information can be critical. Further, flooding the internet with these books drives readers away from legitimate authors and artists.
Here are a few tips for identifying eBooks created by AI:
- Check the cover image: Are words misspelled or does the image look off? Does the cover not match the content of the book? These errors indicate AI.
- Search the author: Most contemporary authors have a website or some kind of online presence. Check also for legitimate reviews or mentions in book-group chats.
- Language clues: Look for red flags in the writing, such as sentences that are all the same length, or language that is repetitive or seems unnatural. Check for errors in grammar, and you may even see gibberish. A recipe in an AI-generated cookbook may be missing ingredients or proportions may look off.
- Read the online reviews: Does anyone else suspect the book is AI Generated? This is a clue. Look for reviews but be aware that reviews can also be generated by AI so check for “verified purchase” signs. Is the reviewer’s ID just a string of letters and/or numbers? Then it may be a bot.
- Think critically and seek out reliable sources: if you have any doubts or questions, go for a book that is proven to be legitimate, such as those published by a reliable and established publisher, in a reliable series, or by a well-known author.
- Beware of phony companion books: AI can almost instantly spit out so-called companion books, such as summaries or guides that capitalize on a popular human-written work. These can appear within 24 hours of the original work’s release. These books do not provide original analysis, but rather repeat a book’s conclusions, confusing buyers purposefully and violating copyright.
There are also online AI detectors that are (at least partly) free:
Keep in mind that none of these tools are foolproof, but they can help.
You can also use a plagiarism detector, or a tool that helps teachers detect plagiarism in their students’ work, such as Turninit or CopyLeaks. These can help identify AI-generated writing as well.
AI-generated content is out there, even in your local library catalogs. Stay skeptical and watch for the signs.
Sources
- “5 Easy Ways To Tell If Written Content Came From Generative AI”, Tor Constantino, Forbes, September 20, 2024.
- “AI Is Driving a New Surge of Sham “Books” on Amazon”, The Author’s Guild, March 15, 2024
- “Authors push back on the growing number of AI 'scam' books on Amazon”, Andrew Limbong, National Public Radio, March 13, 2024
- “Exclusive: Authors Guild to offer “Human Authored” label on books to compete with AI”, Matt Levin, Marketplace.org, Oct 7, 2024
- “How to Spot AI-generated Content: Is It Fact or Fiction?”, Capitol Technology University, March 18, 2024.
