Kevin Roose’s Buzzy New Book About the AI Industry Immediately Duplicated by Amazon Scammers Selling AI Lookalikes
Somehow this is still happening. The post Kevin Roose’s Buzzy New Book About the AI Industry Immediately Duplicated by Amazon Scammers Selling AI Lookalikes appeared first on Futurism .
Just one day after the release of Kevin Roose’s new book about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, Amazon scam artists have already launched an AI-generated counterfeit version of the work. The fraudulent book, called “The AGI Chronicles,” appears in Amazon search results directly beneath the genuine title, enticing potential buyers with a much lower price tag of $24.69, compared to the original’s $30.00.
Roose, a former New York Times tech columnist, expressed his outrage on Twitter, sharing a screenshot of the scam and calling it “embarrassing.” Despite being flagged by other observers, Amazon remains vulnerable to the exploit of print-on-demand publishers. The duplicate book’s error-riddled cover suggests it may be contributing to the impression of authenticity.
The AI-manufactured alternative is currently listed as the #1 New Release in the “Human-Computer Interaction” category, outpacing even the third-best-selling book in that category, which is the Kindle Edition of Roose’s own publication. This issue is not new to Amazon; it has been plagued by similar schemes for years, and despite ongoing reporting on the matter, little action has been taken to halt the practice.
In another ironic twist, some counterfeit books falsely claim to be biographies of well-known authors or public figures, as seen with the recent NYT tech journalist Kashmir Hill case. In a particularly unfortunate incident, Cory Doctorow’s book on “Enshittification” was also immediately AI-duplicated on the day of its release.
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