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https://freedium-mirror.cfd/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/technology/ai-slop-books-biography-amazon.html>
"Recently, I received a strange text from a new acquaintance. “You have your
own biography???” it read. “How did you neglect to tell me this?”
This was news to me. I went to Amazon to investigate. There it was. A biography
of Kashmir Hill — title: “The Biography of Kashmir Hill” — had been released
nearly a year earlier, in August 2025. My life story had a mottled brown cover
and a publisher I’d never heard of before. It had no reviews until I wrote one,
asking, as the subject of this work, if I could please speak to the author. The
hardcover cost $26.99, which seemed a bit steep, but my editor splurged on a
copy and I was forced to read it.
My biography is 90 pages long and should be shorter. It combines facts about me
that are widely available on the internet, such as where I grew up, with
generic insights that could be true of anyone, like a horoscope spread over
dozens of pages. “You cannot understand Kashmir Hill without understanding her
contradictions,” my biographer wrote, along with an excruciatingly long
description of my elaborate coffee-making ritual. (Fact check: My husband does
it.)
The book is flattering, fabricated and absolutely packed with em dashes. It
bears all the signs of A.I. slop. I clicked on the author, one John Crane
Miller. His bio page described him as a “seasoned biographer and cultural
analyst,” and his portrait was a widely used stock photo of a white man in a
suit speaking at a conference. “The Biography of Kashmir Hill:
The New York
Times Technology Journalist Who Exposed Clearview AI, Challenged Big Tech and
Redefined Privacy in the Digital Age” was one of 10 biographies that Mr. Miller
had published in a single week, all of them about journalists, including my
Times colleague Mike Isaac; Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of
The Atlantic;
and Jake Tapper of
CNN.
Clocking my interest in journalist hagiography, Amazon’s recommendation
algorithm suggested I check out “Dan Rather: Truth and Tenacity,” by a wildly
prolific author named Diane W. Gray. She published 60 biographies last summer
about a diverse cast of celebrities, including Joe Rogan, Celine Dion and the
Italian soccer star Paolo Maldini. (That last one had a single, one-star
review. “A.I. SLOP,” the person wrote. “DO NOT BUY.”)"
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
