Public Library Ebook Service to Cull AI Slop After 404 Media Investigation
Source: 404 Media
Hoopla, a service that provides public libraries around the country with ebooks, announced that it will do more to prevent the spread of low quality AI-generated books after a 404 Media investigation showed that they were common on its platform.
“At hoopla, customer satisfaction is at the core of everything we do, and we deeply appreciate the feedback we’ve received regarding our content, including AI-related titles,” Ann Ford, VP of Sales & Customer Support at Hoopla, said in an email sent to librarians on February 10, which 404 Media then obtained. “We want to assure you that we take your concerns very seriously. Your input is invaluable in helping us learn, grow, and continuously improve. In response, our senior management has come together to develop a thoughtful and comprehensive plan of action.”
While the exact details of the plan Hoopla is putting together to prevent low quality AI-generated books from flooding its platform are still not clear, Hoopla emailed librarians again on February 14 to share more information on actions it has already implemented. This includes revising its “collection development policy to ensure we adhere to and evolve with industry best practices,” offering librarians better ways to manage the Hoopla catalog by contacting Hoopla directly, and the removal of all “summary titles from all vendors, with some exceptions,” such as HMH Books, the publisher of the popular CliffNotes series. 404 Media also obtained a copy of this second email.
As 404 Media’s investigation into Hoopla showed, books that seemingly use AI to summarize existing, human-written books, are some of the most common low quality content on Hoopla as well as other ebooks providers, including Amazon. For example, one publisher called IRB Media had hundreds of summaries available to lend via Hoopla when I published my story on February 4. At the time of writing IRB Media still has about a dozen summaries I could find on Hoopla, but most of its books had been removed.
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Read more: https://www.404media.co/public-library-ebook-service-to-cull-ai-slop-after-404-media-investigation-3/
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