Latest news with #ReneeSalt
NZ Herald
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
AI ‘book thieves' copied Holocaust survivor's memoir, says author
She said this computer-generated reworking was then put up for sale on platforms Amazon and Goodreads. Thompson said it was 'clearly the dark side of AI' and expressed shock that someone thought the 'very personal story was fair game for anyone with a reasonable knowledge of AI and what books were selling well on Amazon'. Following pressure from Thompson, the AI memoir was removed from Amazon and Goodreads. Anti-Semitic pseudonyms However, Thompson was shocked to find another manipulated version of the Holocaust survivor's life story was uploaded to the platforms. This time it was given the altered title From Darkness To Light: The Remarkable Journey of Holocaust Survivor Renee Salt. Whoever had altered the text using AI, in order to change it just enough to avoid copyright claims, put the book on sale for £8.99 ($20). The person who took and manipulated the text also appears to have used mocking pseudonyms, Thompson said. One AI book thief went by the name Jude, German for 'Jew', while the other went by 'Penny Pincher'. Thompson said: 'Creaming profit off the hard work of a 95-year-old who escaped the gas chambers is about as low as it is possible to get. 'I suppose therefore the problem isn't AI. The problem is the humans who use it.' Amazon told The Times, which first reported on the claims, that it invests 'significant time and resources to ensure our guidelines are followed' and would remove books that did not adhere to them. A spokeswoman said: '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.'
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
AI ‘book thieves' copied Holocaust survivor's memoir, says author
AI book thieves rewrote a Holocaust survivor's memoir to sell for profit, its author has claimed. Renee Salt, born in Poland in 1929, survived the ghetto, Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She lost her parents and scores of relatives in the camps, and her life story was recorded in the 2025 memoir A Mother's Promise: My true story of surviving Auschwitz and the horrors of the Holocaust. Kate Thompson, journalist and the book's co-author, believes someone took this text and used AI to tweak it, before releasing the new version under the reworked titled Renee Salt memoir: A Mother's Promise: A Holocaust survivor's story of love, loss and unbreakable hope. She said this computer-generated reworking was then put up for sale on platforms Amazon and Goodreads. Ms Thompson said it was 'clearly the dark side of AI' and expressed shock that someone thought the 'very personal story was fair game for anyone with a reasonable knowledge of AI and what books were selling well on Amazon'. Following pressure from Ms Thompson, the AI memoir was removed from Amazon and Goodreads. However, Ms Thompson was shocked to find that yet another manipulated version of the Holocaust survivor's life-story was uploaded to the platforms. This time it was given the altered title From Darkness To Light: The Remarkable Journey of Holocaust Survivor Renee Salt. Whoever had altered the text using AI, in order to change it just enough to avoid copyright claims, put the book on sale for £8.99. The person who took and manipulated the text also appears to have used mocking pseudonyms, Ms Thompson said. One AI book thief went by the name Jude, German for 'Jew', while the other went by 'Penny Pincher'. Ms Thompson said: 'Creaming profit off the hard work of a 95-year-old who escaped the gas chambers is about as low as it is possible to get. 'I suppose therefore the problem isn't AI. The problem is the humans who use it.' Amazon told The Times, which first reported on the claims, that it invests 'significant time and resources to ensure our guidelines are followed' and would remove books that did not adhere to them. A spokeswoman added: '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.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
AI ‘book thieves' copied Holocaust survivor's memoir, says author
AI book thieves rewrote a Holocaust survivor's memoir to sell for profit, its author has claimed. Renee Salt, born in Poland in 1929, survived the ghetto, Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She lost her parents and scores of relatives in the camps, and her life story was recorded in the 2025 memoir A Mother's Promise: My true story of surviving Auschwitz and the horrors of the Holocaust. Kate Thompson, journalist and the book's co-author, believes someone took this text and used AI to tweak it, before releasing the new version under the reworked titled Renee Salt memoir: A Mother's Promise: A Holocaust survivor's story of love, loss and unbreakable hope. She said this computer-generated reworking was then put up for sale on platforms Amazon and Goodreads. Ms Thompson said it was 'clearly the dark side of AI' and expressed shock that someone thought the 'very personal story was fair game for anyone with a reasonable knowledge of AI and what books were selling well on Amazon'. Following pressure from Ms Thompson, the AI memoir was removed from Amazon and Goodreads. Anti-Semitic pseudonyms However, Ms Thompson was shocked to find that yet another manipulated version of the Holocaust survivor's life-story was uploaded to the platforms. This time it was given the altered title From Darkness To Light: The Remarkable Journey of Holocaust Survivor Renee Salt. Whoever had altered the text using AI, in order to change it just enough to avoid copyright claims, put the book on sale for £8.99. The person who took and manipulated the text also appears to have used mocking pseudonyms, Ms Thompson said. One AI book thief went by the name Jude, German for 'Jew', while the other went by 'Penny Pincher'. Ms Thompson said: 'Creaming profit off the hard work of a 95-year-old who escaped the gas chambers is about as low as it is possible to get. 'I suppose therefore the problem isn't AI. The problem is the humans who use it.' Amazon told The Times, which first reported on the claims, that it invests 'significant time and resources to ensure our guidelines are followed' and would remove books that did not adhere to them. A spokeswoman added: '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.'
Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
AI ‘book thieves' copy Holocaust survivor's memoir
An author who helped a Holocaust survivor write their memoir has lambasted 'book thieves' who used artificial intelligence to 'cream profit off the hard work of a 95-year-old who escaped the gas chambers'. Kate Thompson, who co-wrote the bestselling A Mother's Promise: My True Story of Surviving Auschwitz and the Horrors of the Holocaust with Renee Salt, said the first AI-generated copy appeared on Amazon just days after the memoir's February release. Thompson said the copy had been produced 'at a fraction of the cost, financially, physically, mentally and emotionally' compared with the original, which was the 'culmination of 18 months of exhaustive research and multiple drafts'. While that first AI copy was removed from Amazon, another book, written by the apparently prolific Penny Pincher,
The Independent
27-01-2025
- General
- The Independent
Holocaust survivor describes ‘sitting and waiting to die' in Bergen-Belsen
A Holocaust survivor has recalled how Bergen-Belsen was 'even worse' than Auchwitz 'because you were brought there just to sit and wait to die'. Renee Salt told Sky News' Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that the Nazis had stopped counting people by the time she arrived in Bergen-Belsen as a teenager because people were dying so rapidly. Her late husband Charles Salt helped liberate the camp and, ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, she said: 'We didn't talk about it, we couldn't.' Mrs Salt, 95, was born in Zdunska Wola, Poland, in 1929 and later lived in a ghetto established there. In 1944, she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau with her parents. She and her mother were then transported to a warehouse in Hamburg harbour, Germany, where she worked on demolition. The pair were sent to Bergen-Belsen in March 1945. They were separated during the journey but found each other again inside the camp. The British Army liberated them on April 15 1945 but her mother died in hospital 12 days later. Describing her experience, she told Sky News: 'There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink – the water had been cut off already when I got to Bergen-Belsen. We didn't have the strength to talk any more but her presence alone kept me going Renee Salt 'The daily counting of the people stopped already because there was no point counting anyone – for every thousand people alive in the morning, there would only be 700 or 800 people alive in the afternoon, that's how quick people were dying, so there was no point counting any more. 'There were no more roll calls, nothing to eat at all, there was nothing – apparently bread stopped being supplied to people two weeks before I got there'. Mrs Salt said she would not have survived without her mother. 'We didn't have the strength to talk any more but her presence alone kept me going,' she told the programme. 'It was terrible, we saw the corpses, it was so frightening – you never know when your next minute was to die.' She went on to marry one of the soldiers who liberated Bergen-Belsen. Her husband 'couldn't talk about Belsen, the tears were running down his face, he couldn't talk about Belsen', she said. 'We didn't talk about it, we couldn't.' Asked why retelling testimonies like hers is important now, she told the programme: 'Because perhaps we can avert another holocaust from coming.' Mr Phillips asked her if there is a chance the Holocaust could happen again. Mrs Salt replied: 'There is a strong possibility, we hope that it will never happen again, we can only hope and pray, that (it) should quieten down.' The scale of the Holocaust could be forgotten if stories like hers are not shared, she added. Mrs Salt praised the Holocaust Educational Trust for creating young ambassadors to help pass on testimonies. ' People do forget, but I hope they won't this time,' Mrs Salt said.
