Interesting (BBC). Needless to say, Mia Ballard is unaccountable and a victim. An extract:

“Ballard, who sold almost 2,000 copies of the book in the UK, has denied using AI to write the book – telling the New York Times an acquaintance she hired to edit the original self-published version of the novel had used AI.

“This controversy has changed my life in many ways and my mental health is at an all time low and my name is ruined for something I didn’t even personally do,” she said, noting she was pursuing legal action.

The New York Times, which first reported the story, said it “appears to be the first commercial novel from a major publishing house to be pulled over evidence of AI use”.

A lengthy piece in the Times (£) states that detection software suggests 78% of the text was generated by AI. It seems implausible that one of the world’s largest publishing houses, Hachette, would have used easily-detectable AI software to “edit” a book. But then this is a book written by a woman and almost certainly edited by one or more women.

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