Buyer Beware: Identifying AI Slop Books

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What is AI Slop?

You might have seen it in your social media feeds. You might have heard it on a Spotify playlist. And now, it wants to be on your bookshelf.

I’m talking about AI slop, which scholar Adam Nemeroff defined as “low- to mid-quality content – video, images, audio, text or a mix – created with AI tools.” Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most groundbreaking technological developments of the twenty-first century so far, but not everyone uses its powers for good. Increasingly, AI slop books are appearing on platforms like Amazon and Hoopla.

Not all AI is slop. In fact, in 2024, Japanese author Rie Qudan used ChatGPT to partially write a novel, which won the Akutagawa Prize, so authors can use AI in thoughtful ways. However, I’m not talking about award-winning or bestselling books. I’m talking about AI slop, which at its core is a cash grab.

Cash grab books aren’t new, by any means, but AI has accelerated how quickly they can appear, especially on Amazon. It’s likely that you or the people around you are coming across AI slop books in search results, so here is what you should know.

Identifying AI Slop Books

AI slop books are often:

  • Imitating bestsellers (often sold as “summaries” or using similar titles / author names to trick customers)
  • About current events (e.g., AI slop published about the recent assassination of a public figure, King Charles’ cancer diagnosis, etc.) – things that there is instant demand for more information about, but which would require time to research thoroughly and write well.
  • About high-interest areas, including new age / spirituality, mental health, travel, cookbooks, foraging – which, given how often AI hallucinates, can be dangerous, especially for subjects like foraging. In the words of the New York Mycological Society, “it can literally mean life or death.”

Some indicators of AI-slop books are:

  • The author photo is generic or AI-generated (you can always try reverse image searching or using an AI detector)
  • The author has no social media or website (e.g., they ONLY exist on Amazon)
  • The author has a huge backlog of books – even hundreds of titles – published in a short span of time (and particularly after Nov. 2022, when ChatGPT launched)
  • Generic, superficial, repetitive text (see if Amazon offers a reading sample, or check reviews)
  • Actual AI prompts left in the text itself
  • Fewer photos or visuals than expected for subject (e.g., no photos in a foraging manual)
  • Titles overloaded with keywords for search engine optimization

KCPL’s collection development policy doesn’t exclude AI-generated materials from the collection, but it does set standards for credibility, reliability, and authority.

In your own reading and book purchasing, these are useful standards to have. If you cannot find an author’s credentials, or if Amazon reviews talk about finding mistakes in the book, you might want to find an alternative.

Sometimes AI slop books are printed on demand, so they are nonrefundable. Or, the books might be removed from Amazon before you can try to get a refund, which happened to one YouTuber who bought AI slop foraging manuals.

AI slop creators use AI to come up with titles and book covers that sound interesting, engaging, and informative. They’re meant to grab attention.

Make sure the book you’re buying is worth your money!

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