Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 5/21/25

Headline: “Opinion | How two major newspapers published a summer reading list with books that don’t exist”

Subhead: “Of the 15 books in a list published by the Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Inquirer, only five were real. The culprit? AI, of course.”

“A popular feature that you’re likely to see in a major metropolitan newspaper this time of year is a summer reading list. . .”

“And if you are a reader of the Chicago Sun-Times or The Philadelphia Inquirer, you recently saw such a syndicated list of new books by famous authors, including Percival Everett, who won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and Andy Weir, who wrote “The Martian.”

One problem: The authors are real, but the books they supposedly wrote are not. Turns out, the list was generated by artificial intelligence. Of the 15 books, only five are real. The rest? Made up by AI. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/chicago-sun-times-summer-reading-list-ai/