Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#21

Post by toss1 » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 3:44 PM UTC

dorkwood wrote: post #19

How do we know these books are AI generated? Because the startup "Reality Defender" said so? This feels like they're deliberately singling out trash books and calling them AI-generated to fit their bias. It doesn't seem fair, since the AI content I've generated myself has been better than any book I've ever read. In fact, it's inspired me to generate my first book, which I'll be publishing soon.

I'm interested. Is this a work of fact or fiction?

How much editing are you adding/subtracting to the content?

How granular are your prompts (e.g., prompting for roughly each new paragraph, ~page, chapter, or larger)?

How much are you finding you need to repeat/retry to get good output for your project?

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#22

Post by marban » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 3:48 PM UTC

I logged in on Flickr for the first time in a decade or so and some of my contacts who are still using it are now uploading Midjourney images ad infinitum.

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#23

Post by hosh » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 3:52 PM UTC

The indie authors whose work I read on Royal Road (and similar sites) have been posting about how their work would get scraped and modified by AI before being published on Amazon.

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#24

Post by superkuh » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 3:54 PM UTC

ThalesX wrote: post #3

The crypto bros turned to AI bros. I have a close friend that fits the profile and he's now a distinguished author of multiple books published on Amazon.

Exactly. Speculators are gonna speculate. Most of the worst aspects of cryptocurrency were done by normal con artists with absolutely no interest in touching a blockchain. When that was no longer quite as popular they just switched to whatever new thing was popular that the public couldn't understand.

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#25

Post by fourside » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 3:55 PM UTC

dorkwood wrote: post #19

How do we know these books are AI generated? Because the startup "Reality Defender" said so? This feels like they're deliberately singling out trash books and calling them AI-generated to fit their bias. It doesn't seem fair, since the AI content I've generated myself has been better than any book I've ever read. In fact, it's inspired me to generate my first book, which I'll be publishing soon.

[dead]

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#26

Post by ThalesX » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

spookybones wrote: post #4

ThalesX wrote: post #3

The crypto bros turned to AI bros. I have a close friend that fits the profile and he's now a distinguished author of multiple books published on Amazon.

Is he actually profiting?

Not really; very small number of sales, but his effort is minimal. He also uses pseudonyms.

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#27

Post by datadrivenangel » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

nerdjon wrote: post #9

spookybones wrote: post #5

Youtube is becoming flooded with influencers showing you how to do it and promising massive imaginary profits. Same for AI generated Etsy designs, copywriting gigs, and various other things.

Not just YouTube, but every social media platform seems to be spammed by it. I feel like I am seeing these stupid ads almost every hour now. A ton of people jumping on the bandwagon promising insane profits from AI. But if you thought for more than 1 second, if they themselves could make this much profit why would they be trying to convince other people to do it. The reality is they are likely the ones making any mon…

The secret to getting rich is selling people the secret to getting rich.

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#28

Post by PoignardAzur » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 4:00 PM UTC

lemoncookiechip wrote: post #16

Workaccount2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a kick out of people pushing the "Earn $5-$10k extra A WEEK with this one simple hustle!" The hustle? Spam amazon affiliate links, lol. Of course the people pushing this never bother with pushing affiliate links, just trying to sell you the guide on how to do it.

This is a very good video on this exact topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bq3SdfzcA4

Dan Olson also made video on the topic, because of course he did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw

It was a bit before the AI boom, back when the bedrock of the scam economy was mostly gig platforms.

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#29

Post by MSFT_Edging » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 4:02 PM UTC

dorkwood wrote: post #19

How do we know these books are AI generated? Because the startup "Reality Defender" said so? This feels like they're deliberately singling out trash books and calling them AI-generated to fit their bias. It doesn't seem fair, since the AI content I've generated myself has been better than any book I've ever read. In fact, it's inspired me to generate my first book, which I'll be publishing soon.

What is with tech bros resenting art? If an AI generated book is better than any book you've ever read, you've probably only read garbage books.

I'd be surprised if the book can follow a consistent plot rather than hallucinating characters halfway through.

Re: Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon

#30

Post by ben_w » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 4:12 PM UTC

dorkwood wrote: post #19

How do we know these books are AI generated? Because the startup "Reality Defender" said so? This feels like they're deliberately singling out trash books and calling them AI-generated to fit their bias. It doesn't seem fair, since the AI content I've generated myself has been better than any book I've ever read. In fact, it's inspired me to generate my first book, which I'll be publishing soon.

3.5 has, or had, a particular style. No matter what the story, it had a cheerily up-beat ending. The invading aliens learned the errors of their ways and then everyone celebrated. Dracula, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Sherlock teamed up to fight crime.

4 is somewhat more interesting, and I've seen worse from actual humans, but… roll a d6, and on a 1-5 it's terrible, roll a 6 and you get something that's 90% fantastic and 10% just a bit off. For example, this story: https://github.com/BenWheatley/Fiction/blob/main/The%20Silen...

I like it, but if I really examine the thing, the details don't quite line up right. The humans were supposedly primitive, yet "[t]heir cruisers absorbed salvos that would've shattered lesser vessels"?

And sure, there are a million oddities like this in "proper" fiction[0]; but this… still feels like Stable Diffusion in text form. It's cool, it's a technological marvel, it's still, ineffably, not quite right.

[0] Even ignoring that the top speed in the pilot episode should've gotten them home in 7 years rather than 70, Voyager had a bajillion ways to get home sooner — for example, putting the crew in stasis so they didn't age, going at a normal speed, and then using any of the time machines Starfleet keeps tripping over.