Kara Swisher among authors decrying AI-generated books on Amazon

Weeks before the release of her new memoir, recalls tech journalist Kara Swisher, her wife noticed something odd as she searched for the book on Amazon. “She was like, ‘What is this picture of you? It’s weird!’,” Swisher said.

Swisher looked at the screen and saw a book claiming to be a new biography of her, with an image on the cover that she immediately pegged as an AI-generated fake. While the book promised the inside story of Swisher’s life, the author was someone she’d never heard of. A closer look suggested that the book itself might be largely or entirely AI-generated, substituting generic descriptions of Swisher for factual details or anecdotes. Swisher was irritated but brushed it off, she said.