Chicago paper's "reading list" full of fake, likely AI-generated titles
A print supplement to the Chicago Sun-Times published a "summer reading list for 2025" Sunday citing multiple non-existent titles by real authors — a goof that readers on social media quickly attributed to AI.
Why it matters: Today's AI models continue to make things up in ways that AI makers still haven't figured out how to detect or stop, and human users keep failing to check their output.
Case in point: The very first item on the list is a novel by the "beloved Chilean American author" Isabel Allende titled "Tidewater Dreams."
Allende is real but "Tidewater Dreams" — ostensibly a "climate fiction novel" that "explores how one family confronts rising seas levels while uncovering long-buried secrets" — doesn't exist.
You have to read down the list of 15 titles to the eleventh entry before you hit a real book (Françoise Sagan's 1954 "Bonjour Tristesse").
What they're saying: The article looks like it was part of an advertising or advertorial supplement, but the section's cover simply reads "Chicago Sun-Times — Heat Index — Your guide to the best of summer."
" It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom," a Sun-Times account on Bluesky posted Tuesday.
Between the lines: The summer reading list appears in print opposite a house ad for the Sun-Times that exhorts readers to "Donate your old car and fund the news you rely on."
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