Publisher pulls ‘Shy Girl’ horror book on AI challenge

Hachette Book Group has said it will not publish a book called “Shy Girl” over concerns that artificial intelligence was used to generate the words.

The book is scheduled to be published in the United States this spring. Hachette said they will also release the book in the United Kingdom, where it is already available.

Although the publisher said that the decision came after a thorough analysis of the text, readers on GoodReads and YouTube he was thinking that this book should be made by AI. And The New York Times said asked Hachette about concerns about “Shy Girl” a day before the announcement.

In an email to the NYT, author Mia Ballard denied using AI to write her book, instead criticizing a friend she hired to edit the original, self-published version of “Shy Girl.” Ballard said he was following the law, and that because of the controversy “my reputation is very low and my name is ruined because of what I didn’t do.”

Author Lincoln Michel and other industry observers have noted that US publishers they don’t like to change too much when they find topics that have already been published in other ways.