Business Insider Recommended Nonexistent Books To Staff As It Leans Into AI (semafor.com)
(Monday June 02, 2025 @11:36AM (msmash)
from the oops dept.)
- Reference: 0177901547
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/02/1537210/business-insider-recommended-nonexistent-books-to-staff-as-it-leans-into-ai
- Source link: https://www.semafor.com/article/06/01/2025/business-insider-recommended-nonexistent-books-to-staff-as-it-leans-into-ai
An anonymous reader shares a report:
> Business Insider announced this week that it wants staff to better incorporate AI into its journalism. But less than a year ago, the company had to quietly apologize to some staff for [1]accidentally recommending that they read books that did not appear to exist but instead may have been generated by AI.
>
> In an email to staff last May, a senior editor at Business Insider sent around a list of what she called "Beacon Books," a list of memoirs and other acclaimed business nonfiction books, with the idea of ensuring staff understood some of the fundamental figures and writing powering good business journalism.
>
> Many of the recommendations were well-known recent business, media, and tech nonfiction titles such as Too Big To Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin, DisneyWar by James Stewart, and Super Pumped by Mike Isaac. But a few were unfamiliar to staff. Simply Target: A CEO's Lessons in a Turbulent Time and Transforming an Iconic Brand by former Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel was nowhere to be found. Neither was Jensen Huang: the Founder of Nvidia, which was supposedly published by the company Charles River Editors in 2019.
[1] https://www.semafor.com/article/06/01/2025/business-insider-recommended-nonexistent-books-to-staff-as-it-leans-into-ai
> Business Insider announced this week that it wants staff to better incorporate AI into its journalism. But less than a year ago, the company had to quietly apologize to some staff for [1]accidentally recommending that they read books that did not appear to exist but instead may have been generated by AI.
>
> In an email to staff last May, a senior editor at Business Insider sent around a list of what she called "Beacon Books," a list of memoirs and other acclaimed business nonfiction books, with the idea of ensuring staff understood some of the fundamental figures and writing powering good business journalism.
>
> Many of the recommendations were well-known recent business, media, and tech nonfiction titles such as Too Big To Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin, DisneyWar by James Stewart, and Super Pumped by Mike Isaac. But a few were unfamiliar to staff. Simply Target: A CEO's Lessons in a Turbulent Time and Transforming an Iconic Brand by former Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel was nowhere to be found. Neither was Jensen Huang: the Founder of Nvidia, which was supposedly published by the company Charles River Editors in 2019.
[1] https://www.semafor.com/article/06/01/2025/business-insider-recommended-nonexistent-books-to-staff-as-it-leans-into-ai
Is that what they are after? (Score:2)
by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 )
> Business Insider announced this week that it wants staff to better incorporate AI into its journalism.
So they want their staff to fake it? Go full Boris Johnson? (He was sacked twice for "inventing" news).
Or do they want BI staff to act as fact checkers for AI-generated stories?
Business Insider? (Score:2)
by drainbramage ( 588291 )
Are you sure that isn't the title of a porn movie?
Asking for a friend.
Danger, Will Robinson! (Score:2)
by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 )
Advertising and Marketing is making the mention of AI into the best flag for "Nothing to see here, move on"
If AI were an employee (Score:3)
It would be fired for incompetence.
Re: If AI were an employee (Score:1)
So would anyone reading Business Insider expecting to find anything useful
Re: If AI were an employee (Score:1)
They could at least have used AI to write those books! [1]https://copylime.com/ai-tools/... [copylime.com]
[1] https://copylime.com/ai-tools/book-writer-generator
AI's biggest failure here ... (Score:1)
... is to fail to write and publish the books before recommending them!
I for one welcome our boot-writing, book-publishing, book-recommending AI overlords!