NYT: AI-written unauthorized biographies flood Amazon

As a person whose name and likeness regularly gets used for AI slop, @kashhill.bsky.social's AI-written biography has unlocked an entirely new kind of nightmare fuel: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

The AI effect on Amazon has been tremendous. According to one study, the number of books published per month has tripled since ChatGPT was released. www.nber.org/system/files...

Wild story from @kashhill.bsky.social depicting how the AI Slop phenomenon is getting worse & how platforms encourage it. AI Slop is not harmless. It exploits attention, degrades labor & expertise, distorts our discourse & collective knowledge, & eviscerates trust. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

“Amazon has instituted a feature called “Ask This Book,” which allows you to interrogate the app about the contents of the text, and then, if you so choose, skip reading it altogether.” lithub.com/publishing-h...

Read this and also check out the picture of the shelves of the guy who has published 450 books using AI through Amazon. It's like he's done it so he can have a bunch of books with his name on the spine for decoration.

"His goal has been to write 10 books per week, which is the maximum Amazon allows."

I Got Slopped. Someone used A.I. to write a biography of a New York Times technology reporter, so her editor forced her to read it. Thousands more of those books are polluting Amazon. Who is behind all this drivel? by @kashhill.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t... via @nytimes.com

humans are deeply silly. at all times one of us is trying to poison endangered species or themselves, and some of them are using AI to generate AI slop about real people. a fascinating article, gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

'Mr. Johns says if he reads a one-star review and decides “that guy is right,” he’ll take the book down. “I don’t take them personally,” he said of such reviews. Why would he? He didn’t, technically speaking, write the book.' www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

I Got Slopped. Someone used A.I. to write my biography. Thousands more of those books are polluting Amazon. The book is flattering, fabricated and absolutely packed with em dashes. Mine was one of 10 that the author "John Crane Miller" had published in a single week www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

one weird tell for AI-written emails seems to be repeating my biography back at me. Yes, I'm aware of what I've written. You don't need to tell me what my expertise is. This just means you've scanned my linkedin or whatever.

"I asked if he had read his books. 'That’s a funny question,' he said. 'I certainly read them as they’re being written.'” New York Times gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

An NYT reporter finds AI-generated, unauthorized biographies of herself and other journalists on Amazon, where AI-made books with elusive "authors" proliferate (Kashmir Hill/New York Times) Main Link | Mediagazer Permalink

Another way of saying this is that 2/3rds of the new books now published on Amazon are likely to be scams, text banged out by ChatGPT, just useless crap. It's a scam economy out there.

I want an AI slop biography of the person credited with writing this AI slop