Fakin’ Bacon
By Gordon Hopkins
“From the farm fields of Illinois to the battlefield skies of Iraq and then to the bitter halls of Congress Don Bacon’s story is one of courage, character, and conviction. In an age where politics rewards rage and conformity, Bacon chose a different path: one grounded in military discipline, deep faith, and doing what’s right even when it cost him.”
Thus begins the description on Amazon.com of a biography about U.S. Representative Don Bacon, titled rather imaginatively, “Don Bacon Biography.” The author of this slim tome (either 174 pages or 79 pages, depending on if you are reading the paperback or digital edition) is either Justin James (as listed on the Amazon.com product page) or Lawrence Justin James (as listed on the book cover). I can’t seem to find out anything about the author, regardless of the name.
It is not a new book. It came out last year. Yet, until I stumbled across it while searching for books about bacon (you’d be surprised how many books there are about bacon), I had never heard of this book. That is somewhat surprising given Bacon is a prominent congressman from Nebraska.
The book has only a single review on Amazon. The name of that reviewer? Don Bacon, “It is a book on me. It is written by AI. I think about 60% accurate. Lots of silly dumb errors though like my dad was a trucker, I have 2 sons and 2 daughters… lots of made up motivations in the book. There’s a book being published that has partis of my bio in June of this year… and it is accurate.”
Of course, I checked with Bacon’s Communications Director, just to be sure the review really was from the Congressman and not some internet troll. I was informed that, unlike the book, itself, the review is the real deal.
I have to take the congressman at his word regarding the accuracy of the book. However, was the book really AI-generated? I was unable to reach the author to ask. So, I had to find another way.
There are a number of websites out there that offer to tell you if a sample of writing was written by a human being or a machine. They are proving very popular, especially among educators trying to find out if their students are cheating.
I copied the introduction (which was available as a free sample-I had no intention of actually buying the book) into several AI identification tools. They all gave me some version of the same result. One told men using AI generated text, “We are highly confident this text was AI generated.” Another said, “Chances this text was AI generated: 100%,” and so forth.
Of course, that isn’t proof positive, the book was written by AI. After all, AI has been known to be wrong. What we can be sure of is this: whether by human or machine, the writing is terrible, “This is the story of Don Bacon, a man shaped by the plains of Nebraska, refined by the rigor of the U.S. Air Force, and tested in the divided halls of American politics. A military commander turned congressman, he never chased headlines, yet he stood firm when it mattered most. In a time when many politicians scramble for approval from their base or bend with the political winds, Bacon’s loyalty stayed tethered to something more enduring: his conscience.”
Oh, puhleeeeeeze.
This is by no means the only (allegedly) AI-written book on Amazon. It seems Amazon.com is now suffering the same fate as social media. It is being flooded with AI garbage and apparently has no idea how to stem the tide.
There are, by some estimates, thousands of books being published through Amazon that have been either written entirely by AI, AI edited or otherwise “AI assisted.”
I don’t know about you but I have no intention of buying a book that was written by AI. The people who are going to be hurt most by the influx of AI books are new writers. I feel reasonably confident buying a book by an author I’ve heard of, like Erik Larson or Don Winslow or Stephen King or Bob Woodward. Before I buy a book by a writer I’ve never heard, I’m going to want some assurances that writers is a real person. For new writers, whose main problem no matter how good has always been getting noticed, it could be the death knell to their literary aspirations.
The truly aggravating part is that many of the “publishers” putting out these “books” aren’t interesting in creating anything worthwhile. They are simply trying to trick people into clicking on that “Buy Now” button.
And it is only going to get worse.
I wrote a while ago that assuming something on social media is AI would become the default assumption for most people. If Amazon can’t get a handle on the deluge of AI books, the same thing could happen to the biggest bookseller in the world.
And do you know what the most baffling detail in this whole story is? Bacon still gave that book two stars.
