The Chicago Sun - Times newspaper published a “ Summer Reading List ” on Sunday that believably raised quite a few eyebrows in Chicagoland over the weekend . That ’s because many of the books on the list are phoney . And , predictably , that ’s because the list was created with hokey intelligence , a tool that will often just invent things out of thin air .
The list went viral onBlueskyTuesday morning after Rachael King , author ofThe Grimmelings , posted a photo from the newsprint . The very first script on the list , Tidewater Dreamsby Isabel Allende , is wholly faux . And it does n’t get much better from there . One of the few titles that ’s real isDandelion Wineby the previous sci - fi author Ray Bradbury . That novel was first published in 1957 .
Of the al-Qur’an named on this reading tilt , Brit Bennet , Isabel Allende , Andy Weir , Taylor Jenkins Reid , Min Jin Lee , Rumaan Alam , Rebecca Makkai , Maggie O’Farrell , Percival Everett , and Delia Owens ’ titles are all book that DO NOT be ! ! !
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See Alt school text for more detail . Image by @tbretc.bsky.social
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— Bracken MacLeod 𖤐 ⚰ ( @brackenmacleod.bsky.social)May 20 , 2025 at 5:41 AM
The list was reportedly submitted for publishing by freelance author Marco Buscaglia , who speak with404 Media . Buscaglia tell the news program outlet he was “ entirely abashed ” and that while he does sometimes practice AI to create content , he typically checks it before submitting it . Buscaglia did n’t straight off respond to Gizmodo on Tuesday , including questions about what AI tool he used .
TheChicago Sun - Timeswrote on Bluesky that it was enquire the lean , but noted that it was n’t produced by Sun - Times journalists .
“ We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak , ” the newspaperwrote . “ It is not editorial capacity and was not created by , or approved by , the Sun - Times newsroom . We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously . More info will be supply presently . ”
How many of the playscript were real ? As you could see from our annotated list below , just the last five record book , if our true fallible human eyes can be trusted .
It ’s notable that the list also include descriptions of each Holy Scripture that seem plausible if you did n’t know they were totally phony . Many of the descriptions referenced earlier titles by the real writer , like in the showcase of Rumaan Alam , whose phoney book on the leaning is calledThe Longest Day . Alam is the author of the literal bookLeave the World Behind , which was adapted into a Netflix picture in 2023 .
From the AI - generated verbal description :
“ The Longest Day ” by Ruman Alam — After terrify readers with “ Leave the World Behind , ” Alam render with another tense narrative about a summertime solstice celebration that fail wrong when guests can not bequeath a remote holiday compound .
The funniest description on the faux book listing may be one for a non - existent title calledThe Last Algorithmby Andy Weir . What ’s so funny ? The book is about AI running amuck :
The Sun - Times Guild , the union for diary keeper at the newspaper , sent Gizmodo a statement notice that the AI produced list was in asyndicated section that did n’t involve any staff newsperson and was published “ without the knowledge of the member of our newsroom . ”
“ We take great pride in the union - farm journalism that travel into the respected pages of our newspaper and on our internet site , ” the statement reads . “ We ’re deeply touch that AI - generated content was printed alongside our work . The fact that it was sixty - plus pages of this ‘ content ’ is very concerning — primarily for our relationship with our interview but also for our union ’s legal power . ”
The financial statement explained that diarist at the Sun - Times body of work to build reliance with sources and readers and are “ alarm by this slop syndication . ”
“ Our readers sign on up for work that has been vigorously report and fact - checked , and we detest the approximation that our own paper could spread computer- or third - political party - render misinformation , ” the statement continued . “ We call on Chicago Public Media direction to do everything it can to prevent repeating this catastrophe in the future . ”
The giving problem with generative AI is that it ’s currently infiltrating the total internet , poisoning everything along the agency . There ’s essentially no fashion for mortal to prefer - out without ignoring the net entirely . antecedently , anyone could see the Chicago Sun - Times website and have a reasonable expectation that a account book lean would comprise real script . You may not have agreed with the peculiar Word of God review or you may have disliked the author that was getting attention in that day ’s paper , but you could be reasonably damn confident the al-Qur’an exist and the factual information about its plot was dependable .
Today , we ca n’t have that same story of confidence , given the way that AI has steamrolled itself into our lives . Generative AI is little more than a magic trick , stringing together words in a confident personal manner to convert humans it actually has some understanding of the world . But these AI chatbots do n’t understand anything . They ca n’t employ logical system or reason . They are fancy auto - complete tool that are pretty good at resolve simple-minded questions when it can lift from elsewhere on the connection like Wikipedia or Amazon . But the minute you ask it a truly unique enquiry it ’s not operate to wreak out well for the user . And if the drug user is asking a pecker like ChatGPT a interrogation the user does n’t actually know the result to , it has to either take that answer on religious belief or do a whole lot more inquiry to fact - check the response .
In an earlier epoch of the cyberspace , the average , medium - savvy person fact - checking something would use a hunting railway locomotive like Google , come up a page on the net that may have had the solution , and guess whether they could trust that source . The Chicago Sun - Times was previously a plaza where you could have some reasonable academic degree of assurance you were getting accurate information about the globe — again , with the caution that you may not agree with the belief . But AI is presently infect every street corner of the net . And it ’s get harder and hard to pronounce whether the information we ’re induce from long - trusted sources is rightful .
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