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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Marina Dunbar

Chicago Sun-Times confirms AI was used to create reading list of books that don’t exist

a closeup of a yellow Chicago Sun-Times newspaper dispenser
The article includes descriptions for each of the phoney books as well as reasons why readers may enjoy them. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Illinois’ prominent Chicago Sun-Times newspaper has confirmed that a summer reading list, which included several recommendations for books that don’t exist, was created using artificial intelligence by a freelancer who worked with one of their content partners.

Social media posts began to circulate on Tuesday criticizing the paper for allegedly using the AI software ChatGPT to generate an article with book recommendations for the upcoming summer season called “Summer reading list for 2025”. As such chatbots are known to make up information, a phenomenon often referred to as “AI hallucination”, the article contains several fake titles attached to real authors.

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