Authors Discover AI Reads Their Books to Chatbot Instead of Buying Them
KEY POINTS
- ā¢Kirk Wallace Johnson found his extensively researched nonfiction books sucked into AI training datasets.
- ā¢He described a 'cocktail' of anger, worry, and thirst for revenge at big tech profits.
- ā¢Multiple artists and writers are now suing AI companies for pirating their creative work.
Kirk Wallace Johnson, who spent five to six painstaking years researching and writing nonfiction heavy-hitters like The Feather Thief and The Fishermen and the Dragon, just found out his books are the latest buffet for AI chatbots, thanks to a searchable AI training dataset released by The Atlantic. Johnson described his feelings as a 'cocktail' of anger, worry, and a thirst for revenge on 'galactically wealthy' AI giants feeding on his intellectual hard work like it was bottomless fries. Meanwhile, artists and writers everywhere are sharpening their pens and legal briefs, ready to sue the digital freeloaders turning years of creative sweat into silicon slurry.
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(1 of 3)Congrats AI, you pirate artistsā deep research and call it training. Next up: robots demanding royalties for stealing grandmaās secret recipe.
AI training on decades of research but canāt write a catchy Tweet to save its data chips.
Big Tech turning authors' hard-earned books into chatbot junk food while laughing all the way to the bank.
Source: Theverge | Published: 7/29/2026 | Author: Terrence OāBrien
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