Dhillon: AI-generated books are squeezing human authors out of online sales

Producing a book can take months, and sometimes years, of human labor. But with generative AI, people can now produce one in minutes. The result: online marketplaces are flooded with AI-generated titles that compete with the work of human authors. 

University of Michigan School of Information associate professor Paramveer Dhillon, an expert on how large language models reshape human creativity, spoke with Fortune about a new study he co-authored. The research, which examined 14,419 self-published genre-fiction books sold on Amazon between 2023 and 2026, found approximately 20% contained substantial amounts of AI-generated text, including nearly 1,000 books in which more than 90% of the prose was flagged as AI-generated.

The study suggests that the accelerating volume of AI-generated books is making it more difficult for individual titles to attract readers. 

“The crowding-out effect generated by these books—most of which are low quality, but some of which are still good enough that they lead to higher ranks—due to this increased competition, they’re likely to get squeezed, and their revenues are reduced,” Dhillon says. 

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Read “They’re likely to get squeezed’: AI slop books are flooding online marketplaces—and it’s coming at the expense of paychecks for human authors” on Fortune. 

Learn more about Paramveer Dhillon’s research on AI and human creativity by visiting his UMSI faculty profile.