Like almost everyone else, I’ve marvelled at what artificial intelligence can already do. Checking a complex aspect of East India Company history on ChatGPT for my new book, I was staggered at the precision and conciseness of the answer. I was astonished that Bing’s AI chatbot could generate a sonnet on almost any subject under the sun, from HS2 to David Bowie, in less than ten seconds. Elsewhere, a customer service AI chatbot organised a refund for me more swiftly than any human being has done.
But the love affair ended this Tuesday morning when I searched Books3 and discovered two of my books — The Boy with the Topknot and Marriage Material — on it. The Books3 library is a collection of more than
