Chicago Sun-Times Prints AI-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don't Exist

[highplainsdem]

Source: 404 Media

The Chicago Sun-Times newspaper’s “Best of Summer” section published over the weekend contains a guide to summer reads that features real authors and fake books that they did not write was partially generated by artificial intelligence, the person who generated it told 404 Media.

The article, called “Summer Reading list for 2025,” suggests reading Tidewater by Isabel Allende, a “multigenerational saga set in a coastal town where magical realism meets environmental activism. Allende’s first climate fiction novel explores how one family confronts rising sea levels while uncovering long-buried secrets.” It also suggests reading The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir, “another science-driven thriller” by the author of The Martian. “This time, the story follows a programmer who discovers that an AI system has developed consciousness—and has been secretly influencing global events for years.” Neither of these books exist, and many of the books on the list either do not exist or were written by other authors than the ones they are attributed to.

The article is not bylined but was written by Marco Buscaglia, whose name is on most of the other articles in the 64-page section. Buscaglia told 404 Media via email and on the phone that the list was AI-generated. “I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses,” he said. “On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed.”

-snip-

Other articles in the Heat Index insert have what appear to be AI-generated sections as well. For example, in an article called “Hanging Out: Inside America’s growing hammock culture,” Buscaglia quotes “Dr. Jennifer Campos, a professor of leisure studies at the University of Colorado, in her 2023 research paper published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.” A search for Campos in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography does not return any results. While it’s not exactly clear why the AI said this, the only mention of “Jennifer Campos” on the University of Colorado’s website is about the graduation of a student named Jennifer Campos, who works in advertising. The same article also mentions a “2023 Outside Magazine interview” with Brianna Madia, the author of Nowhere for Very Long, a book about van life. “A hammock is basically my most essential piece of furniture,” Buscaglia quotes her as saying. Outside interviewed Madia in 2019, but hammocks were not discussed. Outside also did an article about her favorite van life gear in 2017, and she did not mention hammocks. The quote Buscaglia included does not show up on the internet outside of his own article. There are examples like this throughout the section, and several of them have been pointed out by the journalist Joshua J. Friedman on Bluesky.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.404media.co/chicago-sun-times-prints-ai-generated-summer-reading-list-with-books-that-dont-exist/

---

More about this, from a followup article 404 Media did:

Viral AI-Generated Summer Guide Printed by Chicago Sun-Times Was Made by Magazine Giant Hearst
https://www.404media.co/viral-ai-generated-summer-guide-printed-by-chicago-sun-times-was-made-by-magazine-giant-hearst/

-snip-

Victor Lim, the vice president of marketing and communications at Chicago Public Media, which owns the Chicago Sun-Times, told 404 Media in a phone call that the Heat Index section was licensed from a company called King Features, which is owned by the magazine giant Hearst. He said that no one at Chicago Public Media reviewed the section and that historically it has not reviewed newspaper inserts that it has bought from King Features.

“Historically, we don’t have editorial review from those mainly because it’s coming from a newspaper publisher, so we falsely made the assumption there would be an editorial process for this,” Lim said. “We are updating our policy to require internal editorial oversight over content like this.”

King Features syndicates comics and columns such as Car Talk, Hints from Heloise, horoscopes, and a column by Dr. Oz to newspapers, but it also makes special inserts that newspapers can buy and put into their papers. King Features calls itself a "unit of Hearst."

Lim said that Chicago Public Media is “reviewing our relationship with Hearst.” He said that the paper has bought several newspaper inserts over the past few years from King Features, which in the past have included things like puzzle books. “It’s a way to supplement our paper, but usually it’s things that are not newsy content. We understand this is unacceptable for us to distribute any false content to our readers.”

-snip-