It seems I have not been sufficiently imaginative about how AI can be utilized as an author, from an August 10, 2023 article by Abby Hughes for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) As It Happens radio programme, Note: A link has been removed,

Author says ‘AI-generated’ books were published under her name. Amazon wouldn’t take them down

Jane Friedman writes and reports on the publishing industry. Recently, five new titles including How to Write and Publish an eBook Quickly and Make Money, were listed under the U.S.-based author’s name on Amazon.

The problem? She didn’t write them.

Friedman believes the books were generated using artificial intelligence (AI) and published under her name by someone else. 

They were removed from the online marketplace earlier this week according to The Guardian, but only after a fight with the publisher

“I was expecting something like this to happen eventually. I just didn’t think I would find myself leading the charge on fraudulent work in my name,” Friedman told As it Happens guest host Peter Armstrong.

A reader, who had been looking for Friedman’s books on Amazon, stumbled upon the suspicious texts and alerted the author.

Friedman says she felt violated and angry after investigating the “substandard” work for herself.

“The books are just bloviating garbage. It was repetitive, like a really bad student essay [and] didn’t have anything really meaningful in it,” says Friedman.

…

There’s more,

The books were also listed on Goodreads, an online book rating and recommendation site itself owned by Amazon. But Friedman says getting them removed from that site was far easier.

…

Friedman was able to “reach human beings with critical thinking skills” when she reached out to Goodreads. With Amazon, however, she could only report the issue by filling out a form.

It’s also impossible to reach the person who uploaded the books, she says — only Amazon has that information.

…

Friedman says if it weren’t for social media pressure and help from members of the Authors Guild advocacy group — which Friedman is a member of — the works fraudulently published under her name might still exist on Amazon.

Shawn Bayern, a law professor at Florida State University, says cases like Friedman’s might become more common, as generative AI grows in popularity.

…

An Amazon spokesperson told the CBC in an email that they “have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised. We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues they raise and where we have made an error, we correct it.”

…

If you have time, the radio segment embedded in the article is 6 mins. 32 secs. and/or there’s the rest of the article with all the bits I’ve left out.