Fake News: A Summer Reading List

Chicago Sun-Times' AI-generated roundup features non-existent books

A few years ago, when I learned how artificial intelligence could generate content, my first thought was: It’s the ultimate plagiarist. But I never imagined it would go so far as to make up a list of books that don’t exist.

Even in an era when we can’t trust much of what we read, this week’s story about a summer book list that appeared May 18 in the print edition of the Chicago Sun-Times is astonishing.

The reporter who “wrote” the story used AI: Of the 15 books on the list, 10 were fabricated by computers.

There’s The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir and Tidewater Dreams by Isabel Allende, both imagined books. One would hope that the Sun-Times would have an editor read the list and catch that Weir, author of The Martian, didn’t write this book. It wouldn’t take long to check a few sources and see if the book existed.

Isabel Allende writes a book a year. Her latest, My Name is Emilia del Valle, came out a couple of months ago, so an editor conversant with the world of books should notice that something is amiss with this list. At least they spelled “Isabel” correctly.

Communication breakdown

The Sun-Times blamed the fiasco on King Features and the freelancer who worked for this content provider. The freelancer, Marco Buscaglia, took responsibility.

“It was just a really bad error on my part, and I feel bad that it has affected The Sun-Times and King Features, and that they are taking the shrapnel for it,” Mr. Buscaglia said in an interview with the New York Times.

In an apology published on May 20, the newspaper said, “King Features worked with a freelancer who used an AI agent to help build out this special section. It was inserted into our paper without review from our editorial team.”

In a section of the apology subtitled “What we are doing” the Sun-Times has five bullet points, including removing the section from the e-paper version, identifying content that comes from third-party sources such as King Features, and not charging subscribers for “this premium edition.”

Conspicuously absent: Any commitment by the newspaper to read, review and edit this type of content. In the apology, The Sun-Times says the content must “comply with our editorial standards,” but there’s nothing about reading before publishing. The newspaper seems more interested in saying, “Hey, this isn’t us!” than in ensuring that the stories in the newspaper are genuine, factual and written by reporters not bots.

Perhaps that’s related to the Sun-Times’ ever-withering staff. Two months ago, 20% of the newspaper’s personnel accepted its buyout offer — this comes after several earlier waves of downsizing — so it appears there aren’t enough editors to do the work that needs to be done.

Also: why not publish a new list, created by humans, comprised entirely of books that exist?

I’m sympathetic to the struggles of newspapers. I’ve seen countless friends and colleagues get laid off or take buyouts, and I’ve seen stalwart institutions become skeletons of their former selves. It’s heartbreaking.

Still, we have to do better than relying on AI. When debacles like this happen, newspapers should re-commit to editing and proofreading to prevent future incidents.

A proper apology

Here’s the apology letter I would have liked to read:

To our valued readers,

We sincerely apologize for the recent publication of an inaccurate and phony list of recommended books for summer reading. We understand the trust you place in us to provide thoughtful, authentic, and reliable content, and in this instance, we fell short of that standard.

The list we shared did not reflect genuine recommendations or accurate information, and we take full responsibility for this lapse. Whether through oversight or error in editorial judgment, this mistake does not align with our commitment to integrity and quality.

We are taking immediate steps to understand how this happened and to ensure it does not happen again. This includes reviewing our editorial processes, reinforcing our fact-checking procedures, and implementing a policy that requires all content to be thoroughly reviewed and approved before publication.

We value your readership and your trust, and we will work diligently to earn it back. A corrected and verified summer reading list will be published shortly. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Don’t believe everything you read

Ok, I admit it. I just used ChatGPT to write that apology. It took a few seconds, but at least I read it several times and checked it for accuracy.

I started by asking ChatGPT to “write an apology for publishing a phony list of books for summer reading.” Then I refined it by saying: “Please add a sentence saying all content will be reviewed before it's published.”

Scary, isn’t it?

“Despite what techno-optimists have claimed, AI use is nearly always lazy,” wrote Lincoln Michel on his Substack, Counter Craft. “Yes, exceptions exist. But they are exceptions. The point of AI, for most people in most circumstances, is to do less work. ‘Less’ soon becomes ‘as little as possible.’ And ‘as little as possible’ ideally becomes ‘none.’ ”

A final note: wouldn’t it be cool if Percival Everett — the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “James” — wrote the book, The Rainmakers, that AI invented?

The AI-generated description sounds compelling: “Everett’s satirical genius turns to a near-future American West where artificially induced rain has become a luxury commodity…”

Of course art should come from the human imagination, not generative artificial intelligence. But if Everett did write that book, he’d have a hell of a story to tell.