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A New AI Scam Is Targeting Thousands of Authors. I Was One of Them. (The Hollywood Reporter, 3/26)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/ai-scams-authors-booktok-publishing-1236547192/-snip-
It was in this harrowing lull ahead of the January release of my latest book, a nonfictional nautical tale titled Neptune’s Fortune, that I began receiving the emails. Sent by purported publishing professionals with names ranging from insipidly Anglo Saxon (Dorothy Stratton) to extra-terrestrial (Futa Concept), they all followed a similar template: Four or five smoothly written paragraphs, beginning with detailed, excessively flattering descriptions of my book — e.g. “Neptune’s Fortune is a masterclass in historical adventure and human obsession” (oh shucks) — and culminating in an offer to help me increase its visibility. They promised to mount social media campaigns, get me on podcasts, flood Goodreads with positive reviews, or introduce me to online book clubs, the new gateways to viral success these days as traditional media wanes in influence. Not mentioned in that first pitch was the fee they would charge for these services. But follow-up emails would cite estimates ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars — a small price for glory.
To get this out of the way, this is not one of those stories where the writer admits to having been swindled out of their life savings. I admit I took the flattery at face value the first time I read it, but by the time money was mentioned, it was obvious it was a scam. So obvious that I couldn’t imagine anyone who’s ever been online actually falling for this, let alone enough people to justify the effort it takes to tailor a detailed pitch letter to each individual mark. Given the average writer’s income, I couldn’t imagine the juice to be worth the squeeze. How could this scam possibly be worth it for the scammers? Enter AI.
-snip-
Before long, I was receiving several of these a week. The polished, personalized, idiomatic language seemed genuine enough to evade gmail’s spam blockers. I thought I had the rare misfortune of landing on a sucker list, but I soon learned that almost all of my peers were suddenly experiencing the same deluge. Some were receiving thousands. The AI productivity boom we’ve been promised may not yet have hit the economy at large, but it’s turbocharged this kind of small-bore scam, drowning our inboxes in highly customized slop.
-snip-
For authors, the insult of being targeted by an AI scam adds to the injury of knowing that the AI attempting to steal from them has already stolen from them, since it was trained without permission on their collected works. As the technology muscles in on everyone’s turf, it’s led to a flurry of lawsuits and surge of public opposition. Authors were among the first on the barricades, alongside Hollywood screenwriters who made resistance to AI central to their 2023 strike. (Disclosure: I was the lead plaintiff in a class action against OpenAI and Microsoft, the first such lawsuit by non-fiction authors to go after generative AI for copyright infringement. The suit is ongoing at the Southern District of New York, and though I’ve since yielded my place among the plaintiffs to more prominent colleagues, my objection to having copyrighted work used without consent or compensation remains steadfast.)
-snip-
It was in this harrowing lull ahead of the January release of my latest book, a nonfictional nautical tale titled Neptune’s Fortune, that I began receiving the emails. Sent by purported publishing professionals with names ranging from insipidly Anglo Saxon (Dorothy Stratton) to extra-terrestrial (Futa Concept), they all followed a similar template: Four or five smoothly written paragraphs, beginning with detailed, excessively flattering descriptions of my book — e.g. “Neptune’s Fortune is a masterclass in historical adventure and human obsession” (oh shucks) — and culminating in an offer to help me increase its visibility. They promised to mount social media campaigns, get me on podcasts, flood Goodreads with positive reviews, or introduce me to online book clubs, the new gateways to viral success these days as traditional media wanes in influence. Not mentioned in that first pitch was the fee they would charge for these services. But follow-up emails would cite estimates ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars — a small price for glory.
To get this out of the way, this is not one of those stories where the writer admits to having been swindled out of their life savings. I admit I took the flattery at face value the first time I read it, but by the time money was mentioned, it was obvious it was a scam. So obvious that I couldn’t imagine anyone who’s ever been online actually falling for this, let alone enough people to justify the effort it takes to tailor a detailed pitch letter to each individual mark. Given the average writer’s income, I couldn’t imagine the juice to be worth the squeeze. How could this scam possibly be worth it for the scammers? Enter AI.
-snip-
Before long, I was receiving several of these a week. The polished, personalized, idiomatic language seemed genuine enough to evade gmail’s spam blockers. I thought I had the rare misfortune of landing on a sucker list, but I soon learned that almost all of my peers were suddenly experiencing the same deluge. Some were receiving thousands. The AI productivity boom we’ve been promised may not yet have hit the economy at large, but it’s turbocharged this kind of small-bore scam, drowning our inboxes in highly customized slop.
-snip-
For authors, the insult of being targeted by an AI scam adds to the injury of knowing that the AI attempting to steal from them has already stolen from them, since it was trained without permission on their collected works. As the technology muscles in on everyone’s turf, it’s led to a flurry of lawsuits and surge of public opposition. Authors were among the first on the barricades, alongside Hollywood screenwriters who made resistance to AI central to their 2023 strike. (Disclosure: I was the lead plaintiff in a class action against OpenAI and Microsoft, the first such lawsuit by non-fiction authors to go after generative AI for copyright infringement. The suit is ongoing at the Southern District of New York, and though I’ve since yielded my place among the plaintiffs to more prominent colleagues, my objection to having copyrighted work used without consent or compensation remains steadfast.)
-snip-
Much more at the link, including Julian Sancton's exchanges with two of these scamming operations - one of which stayed completely hidden behind AI, and another which eventually allowed him to speak via Zoom to a human, a young woman, apparently poor and very nervous - wouldn't make eye contact - who Sancton thought might be effectively enslaved by one of the fraud operations whose employees/slaves are supplied through human trafficking.
7 replies
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Sickening. No big shock why repukes just love it.
I hope someone can come up with a means of having an online forum for people's creative work that cannot be skimmed by AI and stolen.