Your Next Great Read Might Be Certified ‘Organic’

A British startup called Books by People has launched a certification process for books published by real humans, not artificial intelligence. The company has secured approval from the UK's Intellectual Property Office to start distributing a human-authored mark on book covers. Founder Esme Dennys explains that the stamp looks like a thumbprint and will be displayed prominently on the cover of certified books.

Books by People requires authors to provide an authorship declaration, run manuscripts through proprietary software, and have their work manually examined for "human indicators." The organization is considering various factors that suggest human authorship, such as the natural process of drafting and redrafting. The startup charges publishers a flat membership fee plus an additional fee for each certification request. So far, five publishers have signed up.

The publishing industry has been marred by scandals involving suspected AI use by authors, including a canceled $2 million book deal and a withdrawn novel. Writers and publishers are not necessarily concerned about being replaced by AI; they worry that readers may not want to partake in machine-generated content. Sci-fi author Ted Chiang argues that knowing how something was created impacts the reader's emotional investment in the work.

However, repeated AI scandals could shake public trust in the unspoken rule that books on shelves are authored by real people.

Books by People aims to address this issue by offering a certification mark for human-authored books, different from other labeling schemes that operate on an honesty system. The organization's verification process involves interrogating documents and communication trails for signs of humanity, with a preference for authors if evidence is ambiguous. Still, some authors and industry insiders express concerns about the potential for false positives and the risk of turning AI detection into a witch hunt.