Journalist Kara Swisher’s long-awaited memoir Burn books Available today. Apparently, a long list of other writers have also been trying to write about her experiences. The day after her new book was released, Amazon was flooded with AI-generated biographies of Swisher, complete with cover art from outside the uncanny valley.
have Kara Swisher Book: How She Became Silicon Valley’s Most Influential Journalist By Cheryl J Stackhouse and Brotherhood Press. Not to your liking?You can try KARA SWISHER: Breaking down technical barriersby Fred W. Smith, or Kara Swisher: Digital Trailblazer Published by the aptly named Kara Press. “Get ready to meet the woman holding Silicon Valley’s giants accountable,” one ad reads.Maybe you will be interested Kara Swisher: The Bulldog of Silicon Valley (Biography)by Jane Coelho.
All told, Gizmodo counted 21 Swisher books, all of which were almost certainly written by artificial intelligence. These include workbooks and excerpts from her recent memoirs, some of which were published just days before her most recent publication.
The covers uncannily recreate journalists’ faces, almost unrecognizable after passing through the bizarre digestive system of an artificially intelligent image generator. Swisher’s actual book topped the search results.
After this story was originally published, an Amazon spokesperson said it had removed some books that violated its guidelines. “We aim to provide customers and authors with the best possible shopping, reading and publishing experience and have content guidelines in place to govern which books are available for sale,” the spokesperson said. “We do not allow AI-generated content to cause Poor customer experience. We have proactive and reactive measures to evaluate content in our store.”
“I blame [Sam Altman]” Swisher wrote on X/Twitter, tagging the OpenAI CEO and punctuating the post with a winking emoji. Swisher did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Swisher’s book, subtitle Technology love story, her memoir as a pioneering technology journalist. Swisher was one of the first journalists to focus on Internet business in the late 1990s, finding success in the media as a Silicon Valley insider on the astonishing rise of companies like Meta and Google. The book is now available from Simon & Schuster.
An Amazon spokesperson said authors are required to report AI-generated material and that the platform “continuously reviews content in the store to confirm it does not violate our content guidelines, improve the way we detect content that may not be suitable for sale, and work to identify Publishers who violate our guidelines.”
Updated February 28, 2024 at 9:31 pm ET: This story has been updated with Amazon reviews.