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Amazon Selling 'Dangerous' Self-Help Titles Written by AI
The Guardian
|May 05, 2025
Amazon is selling books marketed at people seeking techniques to manage their ADHD that claim to offer expert advice yet appear to be written by software such as ChatGPT.
Amazon's marketplace has been deluged with AI-produced titles that are easy and cheap to publish but include unhelpful or dangerous misinformation, such as shoddy guidebooks and mushroom foraging books that encourage risky tasting.
A number of books have appeared on the online retailer's site offering help with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder but seem to be written by chatbots.
The titles include Navigating ADHD in Men: Thriving With a Late Diagnosis, Men With Adult ADHD: Highly Effective Techniques for Mastering Focus, Time Management and Overcoming Anxiety, and Men With Adult ADHD Diet & Fitness.
Samples from eight books were examined for the Guardian by Originality.ai, a US company that detects AI content. It said each had a rating of 100% on its AI detection score, meaning that its systems were highly confident the books were written by a chatbot.
This story is from the May 05, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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