For Christmas I received an intriguing present from a friend - my very own "very popular" book.

"Tech-Splaining for Dummies" (fantastic title) bears my name and my picture on its cover, and it has radiant evaluations.

Yet it was entirely composed by AI, with a few basic triggers about me supplied by my pal Janet.

It's a fascinating read, and really funny in parts. But it likewise meanders quite a lot, and is somewhere between a self-help book and a stream of anecdotes.

It simulates my chatty style of composing, however it's likewise a bit recurring, and really verbose. It may have surpassed Janet's prompts in collating information about me.

Several sentences begin "as a leading innovation journalist ..." - cringe - which could have been scraped from an online bio.

There's also a mystical, repetitive hallucination in the kind of my cat (I have no pets). And there's a metaphor on practically every page - some more random than others.

There are dozens of companies online offering AI-book writing services. My book was from BookByAnyone.

When I got in touch with the president Adir Mashiach, based in Israel, he informed me he had offered around 150,000 customised books, generally in the US, since rotating from compiling AI-generated travel guides in June 2024.

A paperback copy of your own 240-page long best-seller expenses ₤ 26. The company utilizes its own AI tools to produce them, based upon an open source large language model.

I'm not asking you to purchase my book. Actually you can't - only Janet, who produced it, can order any more copies.

There is currently no barrier to anyone producing one in anybody's name, consisting of stars - although Mr Mashiach says there are guardrails around violent content. Each book includes a printed disclaimer specifying that it is imaginary, developed by AI, and created "solely to bring humour and happiness".

Legally, the copyright belongs to the company, however Mr Mashiach worries that the product is planned as a "personalised gag gift", [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile