Publisher pulls horror novel ‘Shy Girl’ over AI concerns
Hachette Book Group said it will not publish a novel called “Shy Girl” due to concerns that artificial intelligence was used to generate the text.
The novel is expected to be published in the United States this spring. Hachette said the book will also be discontinued in Britain, where it is already available.
Although the publisher claimed the decision came after a thorough review of the text, reviewers pressed ahead Good reading And YouTube had speculated that the book was probably AI-generated. And The New York Times reports this it asked Hachette about concerns about “Shy Girl” the day before the announcement.
In an email to the NYT, author Mia Ballard denied using AI to write her novel, instead blaming an acquaintance she hired to edit the original, self-published version of “Shy Girl.” Ballard said she is taking legal action, and that as a result of the controversy, “my mental health is at an all-time low and my name has been ruined for something I didn’t even personally do.”
Writer Lincoln Michel and other industry observers have noted that U.S. publishers rarely perform extensive editing when they acquire titles already published in other forms.
