x.com/DKThomp/status/2085726425131221405
1 correction found
The number of AI-written books with any sales has grown by a factor of *19* since 2003
The cited study does not say AI-written books grew 19-fold since 2003. It says that, from 2023 to 2026, the total number of books with observed sales in a quarter grew 19.2-fold.
Full reasoning
The source underlying the charts is the paper Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books. Its abstract says the dataset covers self-published genre-fiction books sold on Amazon from 2023 to 2026, not since 2003. It also states: "Over this period, the number of books with observed sales in a quarter grew 19.2-fold".
So the post changes two important facts from the study:
- It changes the time period from 2023–2026 to since 2003.
- It changes what grew 19.2-fold from all books with observed quarterly sales to AI-written books with any sales.
Those are not the same claim. The paper does find that books with substantial detected AI text gained sales share over time, but the specific 19.2-fold figure refers to the overall count of books with observed quarterly sales during 2023–2026, not to AI-written books since 2003.
1 source
- Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books
We test that assumption with full-text AI detection across 14,419 self-published genre-fiction books sold on Amazon from 2023 to 2026... Over this period, the number of books with observed sales in a quarter grew 19.2-fold, while quarterly revenue grew only 8.9-fold.