In a video published on YouTube Shorts today, Joanna Stern called out Apple over AI-generated knockoffs of her book that continue to appear on Apple Books. Here are the details.
AI-generated clones have become a common problem for book authors
Two years ago, shortly after publishing Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, Kara Swisher called attention to a wave of AI-generated knockoffs that had flooded Amazon, copying both the book’s cover and content.
As she brought attention to the issue, other authors said they were facing the same problem. At the time, Swisher said she raised it with Amazon’s leadership, which acted to curb the knockoffs of her book, though most authors did not have the same access.
Now Joanna Stern is raising a similar issue, this time involving Apple Books. In a YouTube Shorts video published earlier today, Stern said that shortly after her book, I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything, was released, she found more than 10 AI-generated knockoffs on the platform. Many featured similar covers, while at least one was published under a slightly misspelled version of her name.
