# Non-Khadaji's What Non-existent Books are you Reading? May 2025 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 21, 2025, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620 "2025-05-21T12:04:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/1 "2025-05-21T12:04:21Z")
Writer for the Chicago Sun-Times turns out a list of books to read this summer that includes books that don’t exist. He claims that he used AI to generate the list, then didn’t check it for content, REALLY? You used AI to generate a reading list? That’s grounds for dismissal right there, in my book. The crime isn’t that you didn’t check t for accuracy. Or whether the books were real or not. Apparently, if he had simply tossed out the clinkers, it would have been a perfectly acceptable way to proceed. > **[Chicago Sun-Times Faces Backlash After Promoting Fake Books In AI-Generated...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chicago-sun-times-fake-ai-summer-reading_n_682ce813e4b060af36950bed)** > > ”This is just idiotic of me, really embarrassed,” said the author of the list, who is not an employee of the newspaper. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/2 "2025-05-21T12:20:33Z")
And I thought you were looking for a list of books like: - [Red Book of Westmarch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_of_Westmarch) - [Quidditch Through the Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quidditch_Through_the_Ages) - [Rules of Acquisition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_Acquisition) - The Necronomicon - The Philosophy of Time Travel - Handbook for the Recently Deceased - Grays Sports Almanac: Complete Sports Statistics 1950-2000 - The Big Board - The Gospel from Outer Space The Gutless Wonder - How You Doin’? - Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension - The Money Tree - Now It Can Be Told - Oh Say Can You Smell? - The Pan-Galactic Memory Bank - The Pan-Galactic Straw Boss a.k.a. Mouth Crazy - The Pan-Galactic Three-Day Pass - Plague on Wheels - The Smart Bunny - The Son of Jimmy Valentine ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/3 "2025-05-21T12:32:57Z")
AI isn’t Skynet. AI isn’t gravity. It’s not up to AI whether we accept it. It’s up to us as a society whether we accept it. How we respond to people who use it, and especially to companies who use it, will determine its effect on our lives. My vote is to trash its ChatGPT outputs as pernicious garbage, and to name and shame people like Marco Buscaglia (creator of this list) who profit off a predictive text scam like this. We need to make it clear that if we want to read AI slop, we’ll type the prompt into ChatGPT ourselves; we aren’t going to pay some idiot to generate it for us. You want to be paid for your writing, fucking write. The text of that review list is also pernicious slop. From the first sentence it’s clearly in that jovial, soulless AI style. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/4 "2025-05-21T13:50:02Z")
Chicago Sun-Times Response: > **[Chicago Sun-Times response to May 18 special section](https://chicago.suntimes.com/press-room/2025/05/20/chicago-sun-times-response-to-may-18-special-section)** It includes a quote from King Features, who hired the offending freelancer: > [@](#): > > The Heat Index summer supplement was created by a freelance content creator who used AI in its story development without disclosing the use of AI. We are terminating our relationship with this individual. It sucks for this guy, but he brought it on himself; and making a very clear example of him and his misdeed will serve the honest writers well. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/5 "2025-05-21T13:55:23Z")
Seems really weird he did this and did no basic fact checking. Amazing such a person got hired in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/6 "2025-05-21T14:00:06Z")
This makes me realize how little I know about AI and how it works. It’s certainly disturbing that this list went to print without any fact-checking, but I understand how that physically happens. But if I were to ask AI to give me a list of summer reading material, I would assume that it would generate a list by pulling content from sources on the Internet. I had thought that if AI gave me some factually incorrect information, it was because that factually incorrect information was out on the web somewhere. But it sure looks like AI was straight up inventing this information. Maybe if the “author” had told AI to provide sources, the list would have been more accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/7 "2025-05-21T14:02:43Z")
“AI” is not really AI, but a Large Language Model, something that spits out not “true” or even “reasoned” facts, but “plausible” ones, if the list _looks_ like something you would read in an article recommending books, then it is enough for the LLM. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/8 "2025-05-21T14:07:47Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Seems really weird he did this and did no basic fact checking. Amazing such a person got hired in the first place. I often think about how the worst 1% of people working in a particular field, are working in that particular field. Kind of like the old joke, “What do you call a med student that graduates at the bottom of their class? Doctor.” It helps me feel better about the average person in that field. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/9 "2025-05-21T14:09:49Z")
@What_Exit I too am a big fan of Ralph von Wau Wau. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/10 "2025-05-21T14:14:38Z")
Oh dear. I don’t want to link to it because I don’t want to be part of an Internet horde chasing him down, but I Googled him. He’s got a garrulous wry website where he talks about himself a lot. One of the pages is “recent stories,” which hasn’t been updated in a few years, except for one small section: an automated section that links to stories _about_ him. He might want to consider taking that widget off his page. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/11 "2025-05-21T14:16:00Z")
Frank Burns syndrome, got it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/12 "2025-05-21T14:42:34Z")
Huh. I also checked out his Facebook profile, where he makes a lengthy statement taking complete responsibility for this screwup and acknowledging that it might be career-ending for him. That acknowledgment actually makes me want it _not_ to end his career. If he can learn from it and stay the hell away from generative AI, he might be a perfectly fine journalist. If he insists on continuing to use generative AI for background, though? I’d rather he find something else to do. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/13 "2025-05-21T15:24:16Z")
I’m reading The Gryphon Riders of Ruunsparch by R. Trinon-smythe The New New Me Therapy by someone called “Eliza”. She’s really easy to understand, if a bit predictive. The Currants of Space by I. Sacasimoff, a catalog of all the 100K known jams, jellies and preserves of known space ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/14 "2025-05-21T15:25:29Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > The New New Me Therapy by someone called “Eliza”. She’s really easy to understand, if a bit predictive. I understand Bethoven dedicated a composition to her… ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/15 "2025-05-21T15:26:30Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > I understand Bethoven dedicated a composition to her… How do you feel about…Beethoven? ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/16 "2025-05-21T15:27:30Z")
Eliza! Is that you!? We lost contact when that floppy got lost in the move. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/17 "2025-05-21T15:28:59Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > Eliza! Is that you!? We lost contact when that floppy got lost in the move. You don’t seem quite certain. How long as it been since the move? ---
**Author:** ![moes\_lotion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@moes\_lotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moes_lotion)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/18 "2025-05-22T00:23:57Z")
Shouldn’t the question be what non-existent books are we not reading? For me it is every single one I can’t find. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2025, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/19 "2025-05-22T01:18:36Z")
Advantages of a non-existent book: 1. It takes less time to read a non-existent book than the other kind. 2. It is usually cheaper. 3. Your arms don’t get tired from holding it up while you read it. 4. It doesn’t use up valuable space in your bookshelf or Kindle. 5. You’ll never be disappointed by the ending of a non-existent book. 6. The content never gets outdated. 7. You’ll never have the book ruined for you by the real-life actions of its author. 8. If you don’t read it, you won’t feel left out when your friends talk about it, because they won’t. 9. It won’t get adapted into a crappy movie that completely misses the point of the book. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620/20 "2025-05-22T01:27:56Z")
I’m starting to remember why I “lost” that floppy… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-khadajis-what-non-existent-books-are-you-reading-may-2025/1018620.md?page=2)