Fictional fiction: A newspaper's summer book list recommends nonexistent books. Blame AI

The content distributor King Features says it has fired a writer who used artificial intelligence to produce a story on summer reading suggestions that contained books that didn't exist.

The recommended reading list contained some works of fiction. It also contained some works that were, in fact, actually fictional.

The list appeared in "Heat Index: Your Guide to the Best of Summer," a special section distributed in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer last week.

More than half of the books listed were fake, according to the piece's author, Marco Buscaglia, who admitted to using AI for help in his research but didn't double-check what it produced. "A really stupid error on my part," Buscaglia wrote on his Facebook page.

The blunder was first reported by the tech publication 404 Media.

AI has bedeviled some news organizations

It's the latest instance of an AI shortcut backfiring and embarrassing news organizations. Sports Illustrated was caught in 2023 listing nonexistent authors for product reviews carried on its website. The Gannett news service had to pause an experiment using AI for sports stories after errors were discovered.

"The Heat Index summer supplement was created by a freelance contract creator who used AI in its story development without disclosing the use of AI," the syndicators King Features said in a statement, noting it has a strict policy against using AI to create material. Only the Sun-Times and Inquirer have used the supplement, the organization said.

Among the summer reading suggestions was "The Last Algorithm" by Andy Weir, described as "a science-driven thriller following a programmer who discovers an AI system has developed consciousness" and has been secretly influencing world events. "Nightshade Market," by Min Jin Lee, was said to be a "riveting tale set in Seoul's underground economy."

Both authors are real, but the books aren't. "I have not written and will not be writing a novel called 'Nightshade Market,'" Lee posted on X.