AI shakes the literary world: scandals, lawsuits and unclear rules
Disputes over the use of artificial intelligence in writing are growing in book publishing, with cancelled titles, accusations against authors and lawsuits. The biggest publishers have not yet set out clear policies.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in writing books has caused turmoil in the literary world, according to a review by The Guardian. Literary agents say mainstream publishing is currently like "the wild west": the technology is moving faster than the industry can develop rules, and no one has clear answers.
Writers using AI
Romance author Coral Hart, who self-publishes on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited platform, has written 370 novels under 21 pen names with AI since 2025 and earned "high six figures". The platform pays per page read, so, she says, a poor storyteller will not get a good book out of AI either. A study awaiting peer review, led by Tuhin Chakrabarty of Stony Brook University, estimates that about one fifth of recently self-published books contain at least 25% AI-generated text.
Cancellations and accusations
In March, the publisher Hachette withdrew the novel Shy Girl after evidence that author Mia Ballard had used AI. This year's Commonwealth short story prize winner, Jamir Nazir, was accused of using AI, which he denies. Agents withdrew from a $2m deal with debut novelist Jerry Falade, who says he used AI only for research. The novel by Canadian-Haitian author Thélyson Orélien was removed from the longlist of the Goncourt Academy prize in France, and his publisher Boréal dropped him.
Legal questions
Last year, a class action involving around 500,000 titles won a $1.5bn settlement from AI firm Anthropic over the alleged use of authors' work without consent. An open letter from 70 authors asked the big publishers to promise never to release machine-made books, but they did not. US copyright law protects only human-authored work, so AI-generated text may leave publishers without exclusive rights.
