Reema Saleh , American Libraries; Books by Bots: Librarians grapple with AI-generated material in collections
"How to Spot AI-Generated Books
Once an AI-generated book has made it to your library, it will likely give itself away with telltale signs such as jumbled, repetitive, or contradicting sentences; glaring grammatical errors or false statements; or digital art that looks too smooth around the corners.
Of course, if you can get a digital sneak-peek inside a book before ordering, all the better. But if not, how can you head off AI content so it never arrives on your desk? The following tips can help.
- Look into who the author is and how “real” they seem, says Robin Bradford, a collection development librarian at a public library in Washington. An author with no digital footprint is a red flag, especially if they are credited with a slew of titles each year. Also a red flag: a book with no author listed at all.
- Exercise caution regarding self-published books, small presses, or platforms such as Amazon, which filters out less AI-generated content than other vendors do.
- Think about whether the book is capitalizing on the chance that a reader will confuse it with another, more popular book, says Jane Stimpson, a library instruction and educational technology consultant for the Massachusetts Library System. Does it have a cover similar to that of an existing bestseller? Just as animated Disney movies get imitated by low-budget knockoffs, popular titles get imitated by AI-generated books.
- Check if there is mention of AI use in the Library of Congress record associated with the book, says Sarah Manning, a collection development librarian at Boise (Idaho) Public Library (BPL). If the book has been registered with the US Copyright Office, its record may mention AI."
