Morons.
The Chicago Sun-Times published a list of 15 recommended books to read this summer as Memorial Day looms. Ten of the 15, two-thirds, were made up titles. Then the Philadelphia Inquirer published the same phony list, headlined “Summer reading list for 2025.” There was the well-reviewed tome “Tidewater Dreams” authored by Chilean American novelist Isabel Allende. Her “first climate fiction novel”! (She’s real, the book wasn’t.) Then there was “The Rainmakers,” set in a “near-future American West where artificially induced rain has become a luxury commodity.” That artificially induced novel was supposedly written by 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett. (Nope!) The list also included “Deep Thoughts” by Joe Biden, a book of blank pages.
OK, I’m kidding about that one…
Of course, of course, the phony list was generated by an AI bot, because that’s what the bots do: make up stuff. Who doesn’t know that by now? Well, apparently journalists don’t, because they are lazy practitioners of a profession that no longer observes basic ethical standards of competence and responsibility. A while back I wrote the post “By Now, No Lawyer Should Be Excused For Making This Blunder” about the lazy lawyers who used Chat GPT to write legal memoranda and briefs that inevitably included fake case cites. Arguably, journalists and editors have even fewer excuses for falling into that trap.
“We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak,” Victor Lim, marketing director for the Chicago Sun-Times’ parent company, Chicago Public Media, said in a statement. “This is licensed content that was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom, but it is unacceptable for any content we provide to our readers to be inaccurate. We value our readers’ trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon as we investigate.”
Wait, the paper publishes content without having its editors check to see if it’s accurate, complete or legitimate? Good to know. Why would anyone read such a publication? The paper obviously doesn’t “value its readers’ trust” sufficiently, or this kind of thing couldn’t happen.
The Sun-Times also issued an apology to subscribers, noting that the person responsible for the error had been terminated while promising such botches would not happen again. Why wouldn’t they occur agaon? Well, the paper said that more care would be put into checking for AI-generated content in the future. More care than none at all? Should be an easy bar to clear…
To his credit, the feature’s author, Marco Buscaglia, fell on his sword with a Level 1 apology. In an email to NPR he wrote, “Huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun-Times. They trust that the content they purchase is accurate and I betrayed that trust. It’s on me 100 percent.”
But it isn’t on him 100%. The papers that published the list are ultimately responsible for what goes out to the public under their banners.
Education or journalism, journalism or education…Ethics Alarms flagged the two as competing for the title of the most unethical profession ten years ago, and both have continued to rot away at the same pace. I’m not certain which is worse, but I am increasingly convinced that neither deserves to be called a profession any more.
Ethics Alarms 
It’s not safe to go to the news stand!
What do you call a profession that lacks standards of ethics, competence, and responsibility?
“Not a profession.”
Bingo.
As an aspiring creative writer, I have been alarmed that some (not many) of the journals and magazines that publish such efforts include guidelines for submitting AI work. Yikes! This is devasting to the future of creative writing. It calls into question ALL submissions of such work and discourages anyone from submitting truly original work. H.P. Lovecraft is rolling in his grave (or is he?). Cthulhu spits on their AI garbage.
“H.P. Lovecraft is rolling in his grave (or is he?). Cthulhu spits on their AI garbage.”
Extra bonus points and glee for the Cthulhu reference!
Not since MST3k (and the “Are You Ready for Marriage?” short) have I heard a reference to it. Well done, indeed!
This is somewhat baffling to me because I’ve used AI to give me a list of “sleeper movies” and sci-fi movies. All the movies that were listed were real movies and among the sleeper movies there were several I hadn’t heard of. “The Peanut Butter Falcon”, “Lars and the Real Girl” were two.
It would be interesting to know what AI environment or App they are using because I use the online versions of DeepSeek and ChatGPT. Perhaps the people who are getting these made up titles are using an AI app on their smartphone or laptop which would have limited capability with the compute power of those devices. The online versions are running on servers and have internet access. AI apps running on laptops and smartphones do not have internet access unless you specifically change the privacy settings.
Don’t know, I’ve never been given false or made up titles when asking for lists. I checked all 40 movies that were listed for me, 20 “sleepers” and 20 “sci-fi” they were all actual movies. I haven’t asked for a reading list though. I could try that:
DeepSeek: Here’s a diverse list of 25 great books to enjoy this summer, spanning fiction, non-fiction, classics, and contemporary picks:
Fiction
and granddaughter on a Finnish island.
spending the summer next door to each other.
about found family.
story set in the marshes of North Carolina.
The Martian).
infinite possibilities.
Japan.
family secrets.
Thrillers & Mysteries
shocking twist.
island.
Non-Fiction & Memoirs
indigenous wisdom, and nature writing.
breaking bad ones.
humanity’s impact on Earth.
Classics & Literary Fiction
ambition.
masterpiece.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
with a legendary storyteller protagonist.
All of these look legit.
But what a weird selection!
Also, any list of 25 that includes “The Great Gatsby” destroys it credibility with me. What a pompous,over-written novel. And how do you skip “Moby-Dick”? “Wind in the Willows”? “I Claudius”? “Wuthering Heights”?
With the exception of “Moby-Dick”, perhaps it has something against British authors.
Jack, “I, Claudius” is such a great book. Thank you for mentioning Robert Graves. Must be followed by “Claudius the God”.
Forgive me Edward, but the list seems shallow and too reliant on what has been recently popular. “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides is so hackneyed. Oh another unreliable narrator.
I’ll probably spend my beach time with sci-fi or fantasy by Lois McMaster Bujold. Being able to write how being the legacy of a “great man” can shape a character’s identity and yet still have a good relationship with that parent seems to be too hard for most authors.
You could hardly do better. Bujold is an amazing author. Humor in science fiction is an amazingly hard task, but she does it effortlessly. <i>A Civil Campaign </i> is one of my favorite Miles books. Not many authors can combine subtle humor with rampaging megalomania in the same book.
And then she moves from space opera to epic fantasy and excels there as well. Well deserving of the Hugo nominations and awards.
So what is it with AI and Andy Weir. I mean, The Martian was a good book, as I recall, but there have been a lot of really good science fiction books published. Does ChatGPT have some sort of bond with Weir? Has there been financial hanky panky? Inquiring minds and all that…….
You often indicate how the WordPress AI bot wants you to tag your articles and the errors it makes.
It would be funny if it was more self-aware and indicated for this article something along the lines of “Nothing to See Here, Move Along”.