Get the latest tech news

'Dangerous nonsense': AI-authored books about ADHD for sale on Amazon

Experts say online retailer has ethical responsibility to guard against chatbot-generated work on sensitive topics

Amazon is selling books marketed at people seeking techniques to manage their ADHD that claim to offer expert advice yet appear to be authored by a chatbot such as ChatGPT. Amazon’s marketplace has been deluged with works produced by artificial intelligence that are easy and cheap to publish but include unhelpful or dangerous misinformation, such as shoddy travel guidebooks and mushroom foraging books that encourage risky tasting. Yet Cook noted Amazon’s business model incentivised this type of practice, as it made “money every time” people bought a book, whether the work was “trustworthy or not”, while the generative AI companies that created the products were not held accountable.

Get the Android app