Richard Osman left stunned after searching his own book on Amazon
Richard Osman was left stunned after conducting a search for his bestselling book series on Amazon. The Thursday Murder Club has proved a smash hit with readers since the debut novel launched in 2020.
Its success has prompted streaming behemoth Netflix to produce a film adaptation, featuring stars such as Pierce Brosnan, which is set for release next month. It was this upcoming movie that left the author gobsmacked when he looked up his book on Amazon.
After discovering his popular novel amongst the top search results, the 54-year-old quickly spotted numerous "companion" books related to the film, reports Wales Online. Richard suspects, however, that the writers behind these publications have utilised AI to generate the content.
Speaking on his The Rest is Entertainment podcast, the former Pointless presenter revealed: "Amazon has a real problem with this. If I just give you an example of the sort of thing that happens, if you put Thursday Murder Club into Amazon, firstly Thursday Murder Club turns up first which is great, but there are now about 40 books that are companion books to the movie, that's what they've done".
"There's a million things, there's Solving the Movie Mystery The Thursday Murder Club Review, by Kendra G Candelaria - possibly not real. That will cost you £10.18 and you can get it on Amazon Prime. Two people in the world might think that it's a real book about the movie.
"It's not someone who knows anything about the movie, hasn't been involved, anything like that. If three people buy that then it's made you some money."
Richard pointed out several other books providing reviews or analysis of his forthcoming film, suspecting them to "all be AI generated". Amazon has faced previous difficulties with AI-generated books being sold on the platform.
Publications about King Charles ' health issues and SNP politicians have been taken down from the site before. Amazon stated at the time that it maintained "content guidelines" which all books must follow, regardless of whether they are AI-generated or not.
The company says it has invested "significant time and resources" to making sure its guidelines are followed as has pledged to investigate the titles mentioned by Richard in his podcast.
It also says shoppers can report books they suspect don't comply with its AI policy online. It says this can be done if they believe a book is "inappropriate for sale" on the platform.
An Amazon spokesman told WalesOnline: "We have content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale, and we have proactive and reactive methods that help us detect content that violates our guidelines, whether AI-generated or not. We invest significant time and resources to ensure our guidelines are followed, and remove books that do not adhere to those guidelines.
"We aim to provide the best possible shopping, reading, and publishing experience, and we are constantly evaluating developments that impact that experience, which includes the rapid evolution and expansion of generative AI tools. We continue to enhance our protections against non-compliant content, and our process and guidelines will keep evolving as we see changes in publishing.'
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