Reviews from 'verified' purchasers on Amazon can trick consumers into buying AI-created travel guides. Here's how to spot the scam.
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- The New York Times reported a rise in fake travel guides is storming Amazon and tricking travelers.
- The fake books include generic information, sketchy reviews, and similarly fake authors.
- Those searching for books can avoid fake guides by being vigilant and checking reviews or ratings.
The classic travel guide is being overtaken on online marketplaces like Amazon by completely generic, AI-written ones — but there are a couple of ways to tell if the guide you're looking at is a fake.
According to The New York Times, bogus travel guides are the newest vacation-related scam, fueled by the rise in usage of artificial intelligence.
AI is the main tool used to create the books, since it can create a large amount of generic text, author biographies, and fake reviews to bolster a new book's credibility. Currently, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing's content guidelines do not prevent users from generating content using AI so long as the content adheres to its other regulations.
To determine if a book was written and reviewed using AI, the Times used Originality.ai, which rates the likelihood that AI wrote a passage on a scale of 0 to 100, and Fakespot, a browser extension that flags potentially "deceptive" reviews and grades them from A to F.
The books and reviews the Times evaluated were all rated as likely fake or written by artificial intelligence.
The scam books are often flooded with high praise — one thing to be on the lookout for before buying, the Times warned, was a large number of five-star reviews contrasted with one-star reviews that discuss obviously low-quality or generic content.
"I do not understand how this book gets a 5-star rating. I am utterly dumbfounded," one reviewer said, as a screenshot shows in the Times. "This book has no use. It is just comprised of descriptions, which one can just look up on the internet. It appears like a copy and paste book that is shrouded in the appearance of the ultimate guide on travel in France."
Even the "verified" buyer tag on an Amazon review can be misleading, the Times said, since it can be applied to people who downloaded a book for free — either when an author runs a free promotion or if the person subscribes to a service like Kindle Unlimited, which allows a user to read unlimited books for a set monthly fee. After, that user has the ability to post a review with as a "verified" buyer despite not having spent any money on the book.
Other ways to spot a fake guide include examining the author and their photo. If a photo of an author shows signs consistent with AI generation — like blurry backgrounds or odd deformities in an otherwise perfect photo — says the Times, then exercise caution. An internet search of an author can also reveal their previous work and credentials, or lack thereof.
Though travel guide author Rick Stevens, who spoke with the Times about the fake guides, did not seem concerned about the AI writers taking his job, Amazon told Insider the content met their standards for publication and sales.
"All publishers in the store must adhere to our content guidelines, including compliance with intellectual property rights," Amazon spokesperson Lindsay Hamilton said in an email to Insider. "We invest significant time and resources to ensure our guidelines are followed and remove books that do not adhere to these guidelines."