A reader recently posted a bizarre scene on social media: while reading the physical book “The Solo Walk on the End of the Road,” a sentence suddenly appeared in the middle of the text: “Do I need to make further adjustments to some sentences to make the overall style more suitable for a mystery and supernatural atmosphere?”—purely the tone of an AI assistant.
As a novel focused on suspense and supernatural elements, readers already seek an immersive experience. However, this random machine question immediately pulls them out of the story. Interestingly, in the online version of the same book, there is no such line at chapter 80. The news spread quickly, and netizens called it the most honest sign of “AI ghostwriting”: even the machine’s self-talk was left undeleted.
Planner apologizes: mistook the software prompt for the main text
Tianjin Zhiyu Shíhuā Culture Media Co., Ltd., as the planning team for this book, subsequently sent an apology letter. The verification conclusion was that there was no such content in the original manuscript; the problem arose from the text reduction process: the team mistakenly included the prompts given by proofreading software as part of the main text. Jiangsu Phoenix Literature & Art Publishing House also responded, stating that with many people involved in various editing and proofreading processes, the responsibility is diluted during the handover process, and the issue lies not with the author. For books that have already been released, the publishing house will collect all of them, destroy them, and revise them again.
A published book has to be remade, and both the cost and reputation suffer significant losses. With intelligent proofreading increasingly integrating into the publishing process, prompts can even get into the printed product, highlighting the lack of human review. This mistake also serves as a warning for “AI in publishing”: when AI moves from behind the scenes to “writing on behalf of” humans, how the publishing industry can maintain its last human safeguard may be more important than selling more books.