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Title: Chicago Sun-Times Prints Summer Reading List Full of Fake Books

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/05/20/2019...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Sunday, the Chicago
Sun-Times published an advertorial summer reading list containing at least 10
fake books attributed to real authors, according to multiple reports on
social media. The newspaper's uncredited "Summer reading list for 2025"
supplement recommended titles including "Tidewater Dreams" by Isabel Allende
and "The Last Algorithm" by Andy Weir -- books that don't exist and were
created out of thin air by an AI system. The creator of the list, Marco
Buscaglia, confirmed to 404 Media (paywalled) that he used AI to generate the
content. "I do use AI for background at times but always check out the
material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because
it's so obvious. No excuses," Buscaglia said. "On me 100 percent and I'm
completely embarrassed." A check by Ars Technica shows that only five of the
fifteen recommended books in the list actually exist, with the remainder
being fabricated titles falsely attributed to well-known authors. [...] On
Tuesday morning, the Chicago Sun-Times addressed the controversy on Bluesky.
"We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak," the official
publication account wrote. "It is not editorial content and was not created
by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our
reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon." In
the supplement, the books listed by authors Isabel Allende, Andy Weir, Brit
Bennett, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Min Jin Lee, Percival Everett, Delia Owens,
Rumaan Alam, Rebecca Makkai, and Maggie O'Farrell are confabulated, while
books listed by authors Francoise Sagan, Ray Bradbury, Jess Walter, Andre
Aciman, and Ian McEwan are real. All of the authors are real people. "The
Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a 'summer reads' feature
almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are
we coming to?" wrote novelist Rachael King. A Reddit user also expressed
disapproval of the incident. "As a subscriber, I am livid! What is the point
of subscribing to a hard copy paper if they are just going to include AI slop
too!? The Sun Times needs to answer for this, and there should be a reporter
fired."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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