Amazon has been a huge staging ground for the proliferation of AI-generated spam. In fact, as we noticed earlier this year, its marketplace has alread

Amazon Kindle Lock Screens Are Showing Ads for AI-Generated Books

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2024-03-28 18:30:04

Amazon has been a huge staging ground for the proliferation of AI-generated spam. In fact, as we noticed earlier this year, its marketplace has already started to fill up with shoddy AI-generated listings — at the same time, of course, that Amazon itself is working on tech to generate more of the same.

Now the consequences of this proliferation seem to be spilling over into the world of Amazon's millions of readers. Many of its Kindles, by far the most popular e-readers in the world, are displaying ads for blatantly AI-generated books. And they're showing up not as a little box but in one of the most conspicuous advertising spaces in the publishing industry: the Kindle's lock screen.

If you were unaware that these reading devices could also be ad vehicles, here's a quick background. In the US, Amazon sells Kindles, including the popular Kindle Paperwhite, at a $20 discount off its retail price of $189.99 if you buy an "ad-supported" edition. Take the discount, and your Kindle will essentially show ads as a big screensaver when the device is locked, along with smaller ads on its home screen.

Ad-weary users can pay to remove them at any point for a one-time fee of $20. A somewhat slimy practice, no doubt, but it saves people money, and at the very least some users enjoyed getting recommendations based on their reading habits.