Would YOU buy a book on Amazon that is written by ChatGPT?

Would YOU buy a book written by ChatGPT? More than 200 AI-generated novels are up for sale on Amazon – but human authors fear the chatbot will turn their craft into a commodity

  • ChatGPT is the co-author of more than 200 books being sold on Amazon 
  • A report finds there may be many more – but people do not include the AI 
  • The news comes as ChatGPT could be used to answer medical questions 

Human authors are raising concerns over the more than 200 books written by ChatGPT that are available for purchase on Amazon, warning AI will turn the craft of writing into a commodity.

People are using the chatbot to churn out novels, children’s stories and non-fiction in just a few hours and selling some copies for more than $20.

And while some list ChatGPT as the book’s co-author, others writers do not feel it is necessary to disclose that they had help from AI in writing their masterpiece. 

Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Authors Guild, told Reuters: ‘This is something we really need to be worried about, these books will flood the market and a lot of authors are going to be out of work.’

There are more than 200 books on Amazon that show ChatGPT as the co-author, sparking concerns among human authors who see the AI turning the craft into a commodity 

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a large language model trained on massive text data, allowing it to generate eerily human-like text in response to a given prompt.

The chatbot can simulate dialogue, answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect premises and reject inappropriate requests.

It responds to user text prompts and can be asked to write essays, lyrics for songs, stories, marketing pitches, scripts, complaint letters and even poetry.

And people are using the system to live out their dream of being published authors, one of these individuals is Brett Schickler.

Schickler learned how to use the program to create a 30-page illustrated children’s e-book in a matter of hours, offering it for sale in January through Amazon.

‘The idea of writing a book finally seemed possible,’ said Schickler, a salesman in Rochester, New York. ‘I thought ‘I can do this.” 

In the edition, Sammy the Squirrel, crudely rendered also using AI, learns from his forest friends about saving money after happening upon a gold coin. He crafts an acorn-shaped piggy bank, invests in an acorn trading business and hopes to one day buy an acorn grinding stone.

Sammy becomes the wealthiest squirrel in the forest, the envy of his friends and ‘the forest started prospering,’ according to the book.


People are using the chatbot to churn out novels, children’s stories and non-fiction in just a few hours and selling some copies for more than $20

One author, Frank White, did not list ChatGPT in his book ‘Galactic Pimp: Vol 1,’ which is a 119-page novella bout alien factions in a far-off galaxy warring over a human-staffed brothel.

The book, currently out of print, does not reveal to consumers that it was written with the help of ChatGPT – Schickler is listed as the only author.

The book sells for $2.99 in the Kindle Store or $9.99 for a print version, but Schickler told Reuters that he netted less than $100 since listing it on Amazon.

 And while Reuters reports there are more than 200 books with ChatGPT as a co-author, the number could be dramatically more since many of these authors are not disclosing they used AI.

‘There needs to be transparency from the authors and the platforms about how these books are created or you´re going to end up with a lot of low-quality books,’ said Rasenberger.

AI is helping anyone live out their dream of becoming an author

One author, Frank White, did not list ChatGPT in his book ‘Galactic Pimp: Vol 1,’ which is a 119-page novella bout alien factions in a far-off galaxy warring over a human-staffed brothel.

White, however, did create a YouTube video showing how anyone can create a novel in less than one day. 

In the video, White states that anyone with the wherewithal and time could create 300 books a year using AI.

This title is free in the Kindle Store and costs $12.00 for a hardcover version of $5.70 for a paperback. 

And while some may be in an uproar that White did not share AI wrote the book, Amazon does not require him to do so. 

When asked for comment by Reuters, Amazon did not address whether it had plans to change or review its Kindle store policies around authors´ use of AI or other automated writing tools. 

‘All books in the store must adhere to our content guidelines, including by complying with intellectual property rights and all other applicable laws,’ Amazon spokeswoman Lindsay Hamilton said via email. 

DailyMail.com has contacted Amazon for comment.

Not everyone is blown away by the software.

Mark Dawson, who has reportedly sold millions of copies of books he wrote himself through Kindle Direct Publishing, was quick to call ChatGPT-assisted novels ‘dull’ in an email to Reuters.

‘Merit plays a part in how books are recommended to other readers. 

‘If a book gets bad reviews because the writing is dull then it´s quickly going to sink to the bottom.’

What is OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT and what is it used for?

OpenAI states that their ChatGPT model, trained using a machine learning technique called Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), can simulate dialogue, answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect premises and reject inappropriate requests.

Initial development involved human AI trainers providing the model with conversations in which they played both sides – the user and an AI assistant. The version of the bot available for public testing attempts to understand questions posed by users and responds with in-depth answers resembling human-written text in a conversational format.

A tool like ChatGPT could be used in real-world applications such as digital marketing, online content creation, answering customer service queries or as some users have found, even to help debug code.

The bot can respond to a large range of questions while imitating human speaking styles.

A tool like ChatGPT could be used in real-world applications such as digital marketing, online content creation, answering customer service queries or as some users have found, even to help debug code

As with many AI-driven innovations, ChatGPT does not come without misgivings. OpenAI has acknowledged the tool´s tendency to respond with “plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers”, an issue it considers challenging to fix.

AI technology can also perpetuate societal biases like those around race, gender and culture. Tech giants including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Amazon.com have previously acknowledged that some of their projects that experimented with AI were “ethically dicey” and had limitations. At several companies, humans had to step in and fix AI havoc.

Despite these concerns, AI research remains attractive. Venture capital investment in AI development and operations companies rose last year to nearly $13 billion, and $6 billion had poured in through October this year, according to data from PitchBook, a Seattle company tracking financings.

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