Thousands of books are for sale in Dutch and Belgian web shops that are written entirely with AI, without any warning. This is evident from research by the Dutch newspaper ‘Trouw’. Various companies have reportedly taken measures in the meantime, although this is not immediately visible.
Source: Belga
The publisher Andries BV is the most productive writer in the Netherlands with more than two thousand titles. About ten new non-fiction books are published every day. Topics are extremely diverse, from ‘All about the Winter King’ to ‘The New Mini-entrepreneur: Starting on a Little Budget’.
No human control
The titles are printed when an order comes in. Owner Andries Herremans leaves the devising of the topics, writing and editing to various AI models. There is no human control.
Bol.com was the only provider who clearly stated that the works were AI-generated. The books are also available at many other web shops that are popular in our country, such as De Slegte. De Slegte is also said to have added a warning, although nothing is visible at the moment.
“Stolen from our writers”
The Dutch Authors’ Union reacts with alarm. Spokesperson Noor van der Heijden points out that consumers do not know what they are buying and that the AI models have been trained with copyrighted material. “Those texts were stolen from our writers and now such an AI bookmaker will compete with the stolen writers,” it says.
Previously, ‘De Standaard’ revealed that hundreds of AI books are appearing in Flemish libraries. These included books from the same publisher: Andries BV. The libraries would henceforth ban those works.
