Dutch publishers pump out 10 AI-written books a day, and most stores won’t tell you about it
A Dutch publisher is offering thousands of books written by artificial intelligence (AI), but most sales platforms don’t mention this to potential buyers. Several webshops have now adjusted their descriptions.
Book buyer goes through used books brought in by previous owners. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty.
A Dutch publisher is offering thousands of books written by artificial intelligence (AI), but most sales platforms don’t mention this to potential buyers. Several webshops have now adjusted their descriptions.
The publisher in question, Andries B.V., has published over 2,000 books. According to CB, the largest book distributor for the Dutch and Belgian market, the publisher delivers approximately 10 books per day.
Andries B.V. covers a variety of topics, including tourism, nutrition, clothing, lifestyle, philosophy, exotic animals, and much more. All of these books are written by AI, but hardly any online shops say so on their website.
Bol.com, the largest online e-commerce platform in the Netherlands, is one of the few sellers that mention when a book is AI-generated. Other major book stores, including Libris, Bruna, Boekenwereld, Readshop, and De Slegte, fail to inform potential buyers when a book isn’t written by humans.
“I know of a few providers who have produced dozens of AI-generated books, but a single producer of thousands of such books, that’s unprecedented and alarming,” says Noor van der Heijden, Communications Advisor at the Auteursbond, the Dutch association for writers, in an interview with news outlet Trouw.
She explains this is worrisome for both consumers, who don’t know what they’re buying, and writers, because most AI models are trained with illegally obtained copyright-protected material.
“Those texts were stolen from our writers, and now such an AI book generator is going to compete with the writers who were robbed,” Van der Heijden continues.
After Trouw informed them of the situation, most book sellers altered their websites to inform buyers that books by Andries B.V. are AI-generated.
The owner of Andries B.V. readily acknowledges that its books are created by AI, but doesn’t see the downside of this.
As he explains, the topics he publishes are “quite niche,” meaning that he delivers books “that no Dutch publisher would readily take on, simply because there is hardly any target audience for them.”
However, we must not forget the human factor that comes with AI-generating books, he emphasizes. For every book, there’s a team composed of a writer, editor, designer, and reviewer who check on each other.
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