The author of a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth acknowledged on Monday that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I.
The author, Steven Rosenbaum, whose book “The Future of Truth” was released this month to great fanfare, incorporated more than a half-dozen misattributed or fake quotes in sections of the book reviewed by The New York Times.
The Times asked Mr. Rosenbaum about the quotes on Sunday and Monday. On Monday night, Mr. Rosenbaum acknowledged in a statement that the book had “a handful of improperly attributed or synthetic quotes” and said that he had started his own investigation.
He said that the inclusion of the incorrect quotes was an accident and that he had “no intention of fabricating any viewpoints” while writing the book.
“As I disclosed in the book’s acknowledgments, I used A.I. tools ChatGPT and Claude during the research, writing and editing process,” Mr. Rosenbaum said in the statement. “That does not excuse these errors, of which I take full responsibility. I am now working with the editors to thoroughly review and quickly correct any affected passages; any future editions will be corrected.”
“The Future of Truth” was published by an imprint of BenBella Books and distributed by Simon and Schuster. BenBella Books, which operates independently of Simon and Schuster, did not respond to a request for comment. Simon and Schuster declined to comment.
Mr. Rosenbaum is a well-known convener in the media industry. He is the executive director of the Sustainable Media Center, a nonprofit that, according to its mission statement, is dedicated to giving “a new generation of media consumers” and creators “ownership of their increasingly media-centric lives.” The center has drawn together media and technology luminaries for in-person gatherings and online interviews.
The book has drawn significant attention, including an excerpt in Wired magazine. It has promotional blurbs from prominent journalists such as Taylor Lorenz, Michael Wolff and Nicholas Thompson, the chief executive of The Atlantic. A forward was written by Maria Ressa, a journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner known for her scrutiny of Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines.
The rise of artificial intelligence has set off fears among publishers that they may accidentally release books from authors who improperly use A.I.-generated language. This year, Hachette pulled a forthcoming horror novel amid allegations that the author relied on A.I. to draft the book.
Mr. Rosenbaum’s book contains many quotes that are accurate, but the misattributed and invented quotes are scattered throughout.
One of the quotes is attributed to Kara Swisher, a prominent technology journalist, in a chapter about A.I. lies. “The most sophisticated A.I. language model is like a mirror,” the book says Ms. Swisher wrote. “It reflects our own morality back at us, polished and articulate, but ultimately empty behind the surface. It’s not bound by Asimov’s laws or any ethical framework — it’s bound by the patterns in its training data and the objectives set by its creators.”
When asked about the quote, Ms. Swisher said in a text message that she “never said that,” adding that it seems the quote was made up by A.I. and not Mr. Rosenbaum.
“I also sound like I have a stick up my butt, according to ChatGPT,” Ms. Swisher said.
One chapter about the effects of social media and fabricated videos on teenagers attributes two quotes to “How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain,” by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University.
“Emotions aren’t just reactions to truth — they’re how we construct truth,” the book quotes Ms. Barrett as writing. “When young people say something ‘feels true,’ they’re describing a sophisticated process of meaning-making that integrates emotional and social signals.”
Ms. Barrett said in an email to The Times that the quotes “don’t appear in the book and they are also wrong.”
“I would never say ‘emotions aren’t just reactions to the truth’ — they are not reactions and ‘truth’ in science is a complicated concept that I tend to avoid,” Ms. Barrett said. “Also, I would never say that ‘emotional and social signals’ are integrated — there are no emotional or social signals, per se. There are signals, and the brain creates their meaning as emotional or social.”
Some parts of the book contain genuine quotes that are improperly attributed, or quotations that are a mix of real and fake statements. One chapter cites “Artificial Unintelligence,” a book by Meredith Broussard, a professor at New York University. The quote is authentic, but it did not appear in “Artificial Unintelligence” — Ms. Broussard said it during a 2023 interview with “Marketplace Tech,” a daily radio show.
“It looks like this is either an A.I. hallucination or a misattributed quote,” Ms. Broussard said.
A chapter about the possibility of a “post-truth world” exacerbated by the rise of artificial intelligence quotes Lee McIntyre, a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. The book quotes Mr. McIntrye describing efforts to undermine truth as “‘a form of ideological supremacy,’ in which falsehood is used strategically — ‘not to misinform, but to displace truth as a societal value.’”
While the first part of that quote is accurate, Mr. McIntyre said that he had not said the second part verbatim. All of the ideas in quotes flagged by The Times, he said, are “concordant with my work.”
“It’s the ‘societal value’ part this looks wonky to me,” Mr. McIntyre said in an email to The Times. “One might say that about my work, without the quotation marks, and I think it would be OK. I just have never, to my knowledge, used that phrase.”
In his statement, Mr. Rosenbaum said that if the episode “serves as a warning about the risks of A.I.-assisted research and verification, that is why I wrote the book.”
“These A.I. errors do not, in fact, diminish the larger questions that the book raises about truth, trust and A.I. and its impact on society, democracy and editorial,” he added.
Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at [email protected].
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