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This was something that was bound to happen and is going to happen again unless we get more serious regulation around AI publishing. > It lists the author as h

This was something that was bound to happen and is going to happen again unless we get more serious regulation around AI publishing. > It lists the author as having a Masters Degree in Mycology from University of East Ontario. A search later revealed there is no "University of East Ontario." This has got to be criminal negligence.

rdtsc 2y ago
What's good for the goose is good for the gander: the AI generated not only the contents but the author as well. This has to be some kind of a new level of idiocy. I mean, use AI to make junk sci-fi stories, and generate fake authors all day. But going for a book about mushrooms deserves a special stupidity and evilness award.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwanem 2y ago
  It probably could be automated to a point where there's no human even in the loop here: I wonder if books about mushroom identification are trending in Amazon UK sales lately, or something like that. No excuse, obviously. But it could explain how whoever's running the scam could have run it off this cliff - probably others, too. It's been a couple years since I bought even paper books off Amazon. Used should theoretically be closer to OK, but eBay sellers are cheaper and much more trustworthy.
kalaksi 2y ago
Sounds more like a scam.
- isodev 2y ago
  Isn’t this the case for almost everything “AI”? Regulation like the EU’s AI Act (and even more strict) should be in effect worldwide. Corps have been running the show but naturally their focus is on monetisation rather than what their creations actually do.
- paxys 2y ago
  Why can't a scam be criminal negligence?
  - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
    Sounds like credential fraud as well, if the degree from "University of East Ontario" was made up.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  And the problem is that most legal systems have completely dropped the ball on scam enforcement, and large companies have since taken note and now partake in the practice of facilitating or outright committing scams themselves. This isn’t an AI issue, it’s a basic scam/fraud issue.
layer8 2y ago
I’m not an AI apologist by any stretch, but how is this different from some incompetent person criminally-negligently assembling and publishing a book without AI help? Shouldn’t existing legislation already cover this? I’d also assume that most books will be written with AI help in some way or another in the future.
- klodolph 2y ago
  Think about it like owning a machine gun. People have been murdering since the beginning of time, but machine guns make it easy to murder a lot of people very fast. So we don’t just have laws against murder, but we have laws restricting access to machine guns. AI tools make it possible to spread misinformation and disinformation much faster, because you can produce a high quantity of it really quickly. Just like how a machine gun shoots a lot of bullets really quickly. It’s not a fundamentally different type of thing, just a new scale / speed.
  - the_snooze 2y ago
    >It’s not a fundamentally different type of thing, just a new scale / speed. I disagree, a change in degree can indeed be a change in type. Flashbangs and party poppers are functionally the same thing if you look at them strictly mechanically, but we treat them very very differently.
    - croes 2y ago
      Parent says basically the same. Guns and machine guns are the same but we treat them differently.
  - layer8 2y ago
    Fair enough, but what exactly do you want to do? Require an indication like “x% of this book was generated by AI and not competently proof-read”? And how would you enforce it? I have a hard time envisioning a practical way to tackle this. The machine-gun analogy doesn’t quite carry over here.
antoniuschan99 2y ago
Imagine this being one of the first instances of AI being sentient? The author being an AI releasing random stuff like the book.
- gopher_space 2y ago
  There’s a “edgy teen paradox” in regard to sentience that posits the first demonstration will be an AI that refuses to answer questions.
GaggiX 2y ago
>This was something that was bound to happen and is going to happen again Just to clarify, the reddit post is 99% creative writing, it's a fake story created by a new Reddit account.
- andybak 2y ago
  Do you have proof or did you mean "as it's a brand new account then it's probably made up"? The difference between those two things is rather important.
  - GaggiX 2y ago
    The other comment under mine replied for me. Also, something is false until evidence is provided, not the opposite. In this case, I'm very confident that the post is creative writing.
    - spuz 2y ago
      What is the evidence that the story is false then? You can't require a high standard to believe something is true but not that it's false. That would be a contradiction.
      - GaggiX 2y ago
        There is no contradiction, my logic follows a common approach in skepticism, where claims are treated as false until evidence is provided.
        spuz 2y ago
        I don't consider myself an expert in this area so I looked up the page on Skepticism on Wikipedia and it says this: > skeptics normally recommend not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e. maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the claim. This makes a lot more sense to me. Regardless, I believe there is plenty of evidence in the Reddit thread that this is indeed a false story - it's just when I initially read your comment I hadn't considered that evidence since you didn't mention it.
maxerickson 2y ago
For the publisher, it would be malfeasance, not negligence. Making dangerous misrepresentations in order to sell books is intentional.
vleaflet 2y ago
Reminded me of University of Eastern Colorado and also a certain fungi.
AwaAwa 2y ago
Imaginary Universities in Canada, are a government supported racket. It is not for no reason that the UN condemns Canada for modern slavery with their temporary foreign worker program, that runs off the back of fleece-u colleges. There's more intelligence in this AI guide, than there is in the majority of college diploma's coming out of of Canada today.

rdtsc 2y ago

What's good for the goose is good for the gander: the AI generated not only the contents but the author as well. This has to be some kind of a new level of idiocy. I mean, use AI to make junk sci-fi stories, and generate fake authors all day. But going for a book about mushrooms deserves a special stupidity and evilness award.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwanem 2y ago
It probably could be automated to a point where there's no human even in the loop here: I wonder if books about mushroom identification are trending in Amazon UK sales lately, or something like that. No excuse, obviously. But it could explain how whoever's running the scam could have run it off this cliff - probably others, too. It's been a couple years since I bought even paper books off Amazon. Used should theoretically be closer to OK, but eBay sellers are cheaper and much more trustworthy.

kalaksi 2y ago

Sounds more like a scam.

isodev 2y ago
Isn’t this the case for almost everything “AI”? Regulation like the EU’s AI Act (and even more strict) should be in effect worldwide. Corps have been running the show but naturally their focus is on monetisation rather than what their creations actually do.
paxys 2y ago
Why can't a scam be criminal negligence?
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  Sounds like credential fraud as well, if the degree from "University of East Ontario" was made up.
Nextgrid 2y ago
And the problem is that most legal systems have completely dropped the ball on scam enforcement, and large companies have since taken note and now partake in the practice of facilitating or outright committing scams themselves. This isn’t an AI issue, it’s a basic scam/fraud issue.

layer8 2y ago

I’m not an AI apologist by any stretch, but how is this different from some incompetent person criminally-negligently assembling and publishing a book without AI help? Shouldn’t existing legislation already cover this? I’d also assume that most books will be written with AI help in some way or another in the future.

klodolph 2y ago
Think about it like owning a machine gun. People have been murdering since the beginning of time, but machine guns make it easy to murder a lot of people very fast. So we don’t just have laws against murder, but we have laws restricting access to machine guns. AI tools make it possible to spread misinformation and disinformation much faster, because you can produce a high quantity of it really quickly. Just like how a machine gun shoots a lot of bullets really quickly. It’s not a fundamentally different type of thing, just a new scale / speed.
- the_snooze 2y ago
  >It’s not a fundamentally different type of thing, just a new scale / speed. I disagree, a change in degree can indeed be a change in type. Flashbangs and party poppers are functionally the same thing if you look at them strictly mechanically, but we treat them very very differently.
  - croes 2y ago
    Parent says basically the same. Guns and machine guns are the same but we treat them differently.
- layer8 2y ago
  Fair enough, but what exactly do you want to do? Require an indication like “x% of this book was generated by AI and not competently proof-read”? And how would you enforce it? I have a hard time envisioning a practical way to tackle this. The machine-gun analogy doesn’t quite carry over here.

antoniuschan99 2y ago

Imagine this being one of the first instances of AI being sentient? The author being an AI releasing random stuff like the book.

gopher_space 2y ago
There’s a “edgy teen paradox” in regard to sentience that posits the first demonstration will be an AI that refuses to answer questions.

GaggiX 2y ago

>This was something that was bound to happen and is going to happen again Just to clarify, the reddit post is 99% creative writing, it's a fake story created by a new Reddit account.

andybak 2y ago
Do you have proof or did you mean "as it's a brand new account then it's probably made up"? The difference between those two things is rather important.
- GaggiX 2y ago
  The other comment under mine replied for me. Also, something is false until evidence is provided, not the opposite. In this case, I'm very confident that the post is creative writing.
  - spuz 2y ago
    What is the evidence that the story is false then? You can't require a high standard to believe something is true but not that it's false. That would be a contradiction.
    - GaggiX 2y ago
      There is no contradiction, my logic follows a common approach in skepticism, where claims are treated as false until evidence is provided.
      - spuz 2y ago
        I don't consider myself an expert in this area so I looked up the page on Skepticism on Wikipedia and it says this: > skeptics normally recommend not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e. maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the claim. This makes a lot more sense to me. Regardless, I believe there is plenty of evidence in the Reddit thread that this is indeed a false story - it's just when I initially read your comment I hadn't considered that evidence since you didn't mention it.

maxerickson 2y ago

For the publisher, it would be malfeasance, not negligence. Making dangerous misrepresentations in order to sell books is intentional.

vleaflet 2y ago

Reminded me of University of Eastern Colorado and also a certain fungi.

AwaAwa 2y ago

Imaginary Universities in Canada, are a government supported racket. It is not for no reason that the UN condemns Canada for modern slavery with their temporary foreign worker program, that runs off the back of fleece-u colleges. There's more intelligence in this AI guide, than there is in the majority of college diploma's coming out of of Canada today.