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'Against everything we do': Bookstores steering clear of books written by AI

Author
Michael Sergel ,
Publish Date
Fri, 11 Jul 2025, 12:15pm
Bookstores rely on publishers to ensure the books they sell aren't written by AI.
Bookstores rely on publishers to ensure the books they sell aren't written by AI.

'Against everything we do': Bookstores steering clear of books written by AI

Author
Michael Sergel ,
Publish Date
Fri, 11 Jul 2025, 12:15pm

New Zealand booksellers are steering clear of books written by artificial intelligence (AI), but are ultimately relying on publishers to ensure they don鈥檛 end up on the shelves. 

Bot-generated books are becoming increasingly common, with many public libraries now open to offering them in the future if there is strong public demand. 

But the national Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand association said bookstores are focused on selling human-written books 鈥 those where AI has only been used for grammar, spell-checking and research. 

鈥淲e don鈥檛 have the requisite regulation around the use of AI and the publishing model 鈥 it鈥檚 very grey,鈥 association manager Renee Rowland said. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 a high trust model 鈥 we trust that the publishers are going to sell us books written by humans. When there鈥檚 a self-published book, they鈥檙e subject to intense scrutiny by booksellers, but again... we鈥檙e taking people at their word.鈥 

Rowland said selling human-created works was core to the purpose of a bookstore. 

鈥淏ooksellers are in the market for stories which are innately human product. The idea of selling a story written by a robot or artificial intelligence is just against everything we do.鈥 

Some overseas online platforms have been flooded with books written by AI bots, often paraphrasing, imitating or summarising an existing work or group of works. 

Amazon鈥檚 Kindle Direct Publishing platform has responded by requiring self-publishers to disclose AI-generated content and preventing them from publishing more than three books a day. 

An Amazon spokesperson told 九一星空无限talk ZB it had guidelines in place for all content and had 鈥減roactive and reactive methods鈥 to detect content that violated those standards. 

鈥淲e invest significant time and resources to ensure our guidelines are followed and remove books that do not adhere to those guidelines. 

鈥淲e continue to enhance our protections against non-compliant content, and our process and guidelines will keep evolving as we see changes in AI-driven publishing.鈥 

Rowland said AI could have huge advantages in addressing New Zealand鈥檚 productivity problem, but there needed to be more discussion about regulation and the potential impact of AI on intellectual property. 

鈥淭here鈥檚 been a huge amount of theft by systems using AI. We鈥檙e fundamentally opposed to that and condemn that kind of that theft and that piracy,鈥 she said. 

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