‘Shy Girl’ sold just under 2.000 copies in the UK and had been reviewed almost 5.000 times on Goodreads. Publisher Hachette has now pulled it from Amazon and its website.
If you’ve been on social media sites like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, or even Reddit, you’re probably no stranger to AI-generated content. But until now, at least, it’s unlikely you’d expect the same experience in a book from a mainstream publisher.
Hachette has canceled the US release of a new horror novel, Shy Girl, amid claims that it was generated by AI. According to The New York Times, it’s the “first commercial novel from a major publishing house to be pulled over evidence of AI use.”
Hachette removed the book from its website after the Times got in touch about rumors that it was at least partially AI-generated; it’s now been removed from Amazon, too. Hachette is part of the Big Five, a publishing collective that controls most of the world’s book sales.
AI accusations had been spreading on YouTube, Reddit, and book review sites like Goodreads for months. One Reddit post pointed out that “almost every noun” in the book is accompanied by an adjective, and that the book overused weather similes for actions.
The book’s author, Mia Ballard, has denied the claims, alleging that the quirks in the book’s text may be due to her editor’s use of AI, without her consent. “This controversy has changed my life in many ways, and my mental health is at an all-time low, and my name is ruined for something I didn’t even personally do,” Ballard told the Times.
Even though there haven’t been many confirmed instances of major publishers allowing AI-generated works to reach the final stage until now, AI-generated work has been a growing problem for smaller outlets like science-fiction magazines since tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT first went mainstream. In some cases, publications have paused submissions.
Detecting AI-based writing has so far proved as much an art as a science, despite claims from tools that they can detect instances with widespread accuracy. Teachers and students across the US have had to contend with false positives from AI writing detectors.
