None of these people exist, but you can buy their books on Amazon anyway

Conspirador Norteno

Substack.com

Originally published 12 Jan 24

Meet Jason N. Martin N. Martin, the author of the exciting and dynamic Amazon bestseller “How to Talk to Anyone: Master Small Talks, Elevate Your Social Skills, Build Genuine Connections (Make Real Friends; Boost Confidence & Charisma)”, which is the 857,233rd most popular book on the Kindle Store as of January 12th, 2024. There are, however, a few obvious problems. In addition to the unnecessary repetition of the middle initial and last name, Mr. N. Martin N. Martin’s official portrait is a GAN-generated face, and (as we’ll see shortly), his sole published work is strangely similar to several books by another Amazon author with a GAN-generated face.

In an interesting twist, Amazon’s recommendation system suggests another author with a GAN-generated face in the “Customers also bought items by” section of Jason N. Martin N. Martin’s author page. Further exploration of the recommendations attached to both of these authors and their published works reveals a set of a dozen Amazon authors with GAN-generated faces and at least one published book. Amazon’s recommendation algorithms reliably link these authors together; whether this is a sign that the twelve author accounts are actually run by the same entity or merely an artifact of similarities in the content of their books is unclear at this point in time. 

The info is here.

Here's my take:

Forget literary pen names - AI is creating a new trend on Amazon: ghostwritten books. These novels, poetry collections, and even children's stories boast intriguing titles and blurbs, yet none of the authors on the cover are real people. Instead, their creations spring from the algorithms of powerful language models.

Here's the gist:

• AI churns out content: Fueled by vast datasets of text and code, AI can generate chapters, characters, and storylines at an astonishing pace.
• Ethical concerns: Questions swirl around copyright, originality, and the very nature of authorship. Is an AI-generated book truly a book, or just a clever algorithm mimicking creativity?
• Quality varies: While some AI-written books garner praise, others are criticized for factual errors, nonsensical plots, and robotic dialogue.
• Transparency is key: Many readers feel deceived by the lack of transparency about AI authorship. Should books disclose their digital ghostwriters?

This evolving technology challenges our understanding of literature and raises questions about the future of authorship. While AI holds potential to assist and inspire, the human touch in storytelling remains irreplaceable. So, the next time you browse Amazon, remember: the author on the cover might not be who they seem.

An Academic Ghostwriter, the 'Shadow Scholar,' Comes Clean

By Dan Berrett

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Originally published on August 21, 2012

When The Chronicle published a confessional essay two years ago by a writer for a student-paper mill who had spent nearly a decade helping college students cheat on their assignments, it provoked anger, astonishment, and weary resignation.

The writer, under the pseudonym Ed Dante, said he had completed scores of papers for students who were too lazy or simply unprepared for their work at the undergraduate, master's, and doctoral levels.

The academic ghostwriter has retired, and in his new memoir, he reveals his true identity: Dave Tomar, 32, a graduate of the bachelor's program in communications at Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus and, now, a freelance writer in Philadelphia.

In The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat, which is due out next month from Bloomsbury, Mr. Tomar seeks to cast himself as a millennial antihero while scolding colleges for placing the pursuit of money and status above student learning.

The entire article is here.

Penn Clears Two Faculty Psychiatrists of Research Misconduct Charges

by Jocelyn Kaiser
Sciencemag.org
Originally published on March 2, 2012

The University of Pennsylvania has found no merit to an allegation that two of its psychiatry faculty committed research misconduct when they co-authored a 2001 paper written with help from writers hired by a drug company. But the university says that under current rules, the two faculty members would have been required to acknowledge the role of a "medical writer" in preparing the paper.   

Last July, Penn psychiatrist Jay Amsterdam alleged in a letter to the federal Office of Research Integrity that five researchers, including Penn's Laszlo Gyulai and Dwight Evans, chair of the Penn psychiatry department, had "engaged in scientific misconduct by allowing their names to be appended to a manuscript that was drafted by" Scientific Therapeutics Information (STI), a medical communications company, that had been "hired by" GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The paper, which appeared in June 2001 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, reported on a small clinical trial of the antidepressant Paxil, partly funded by GSK and the National Institutes of Health. Amsterdam also claimed the paper was "biased" in favor of Paxil's safety and efficacy.

Amsterdam's letter argued that ORI should be involved because NIH Director Francis Collins has written that ghostwriting "may be appropriate for consideration as a case of plagiarism," which falls under the federal definition of research misconduct.

But Penn has concluded that no plagiarism occurred. In a statement yesterday, the university says that a faculty committee found "there was no plagiarism and no merit to the allegations of research misconduct" because Evans and Gyulai helped conduct the research and analyze the results and "contributed to the paper." The paper "presented the research findings accurately," Penn says.

The entire article is here.

Medical Academics Could Be Legally Liable for Ghostwritten Articles

By Josh Fischman

The Chronicle of Highe Education

Originally published January 24, 2012

Condemnation by ethicists and loss of grant money are not the only penalties facing academics who put their names on medical-journal articles they didn't write. Personal-injury lawyers have them in their sights now, too.

In an article published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, the authors laid out three possible areas of liability, including the federal anti-kickback statute, which can carry prison time plus fines of up to $250,000.

Researchers at major universities, including Brown, Emory, Harvard, Stanford, Tufts, and Yale, have been accused in recent years of signing their names to medical-journal articles that were written by others, articles that promoted the benefits of various medications and were produced under the auspices of pharmaceutical companies trying to boost their products. Last year The Chronicle reported that a University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor accused five other academics of signing an article that was ghostwritten for the maker of the antidepressant Paxil and made unsupported claims for it.

"By lending his name, the author is contributing to fraud," says Bijan Esfandiari, one of the authors of the PLoS Medicine article. "And the ghostwriter is involved in the conspiracy as well."

Mr. Esfandiari is a lawyer with the firm of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman in Los Angeles. ("For 25 years we have championed death and injury claims for thousands of clients nationwide," reads the firm's Web site.) His co-authors are Xavier A. Bosch, a professor in the department of medicine at the University of Barcelona, and Leemon McHenry, a lecturer and specialist in bioethics in the philosophy department at California State University at Northridge.

The entire story is here.

Ghost Writing Persists in Major Medical Journals

By Robert Preidt
MedicineNet.com

Honorary and ghost authors were involved in 21% of articles published in six leading medical journals in 2008, which shows that this type of inappropriate authorship remains a problem, a new study says.

Honorary authors are people named as authors despite not making a substantial enough contribution to take responsibility for the research. Ghost authors are people who play a major role in the research or who participate in writing the article, but are not named as authors.

The lack of transparency and accountability associated with both types of inappropriate authorship has been a concern for decades, according to the study authors.

The entire report can be read here.

The original article concludes:

"Ensuring appropriate authorship remains an important issue for authors, academic and research institutions, and scientific journals. Full transparency in authorship is essential for maintaining integrity and accountability in scientific publication and ensuring public confidence in medical research. The results of this study should raise awareness among the scientific community about the importance of ensuring appropriate authorship credit and responsibility. Future research should continue to monitor inappropriate authorship and investigate ways that the scientific community could increase its effectiveness in addressing the problem."

Further information about the original article can be found here.

BMJ 2011; 343:d6128 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d6128 (Published 25 October 2011)

Cite this as: BMJ 2011; 343:d6128

McGill reprimands prof over ghostwriting scandal

By AARON DERFEL, Gazette Health Reporter

Barbara Sherwin

McGill University has formally reprimanded senior professor and researcher Barbara Sherwin for failing to acknowledge a ghostwriter hired by drug company Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in a paper Sherwin wrote in 2000.

However, the university has decided against sanctioning Sherwin, who is a James McGill professor of psychology, obstetrics and gynecology.

In August 2009, Sherwin's name appeared in court documents in a class-action suit launched by 8,400 women against Wyeth. The documents revealed that Wyeth paid a New Jersey professional-writing firm, DesignWrite, to produce a paper on treatment options for ageassociated memory loss that was eventually published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Sherwin was listed as the sole author of that paper, even though Karen Mittleman, an employee of DesignWrite, was involved in the process. The paper was published just when critics started raising doubts about hormone-replacement therapy.

Wyeth - through DesignWrite - had commissioned at least 40 scientific papers endorsing the therapy. The drug company (now part of Pfizer) had a vested interest in HRT, as sales of its hormone drugs soared to almost $2 billion in 2001.

Shortly after the revelations from the court documents were made public, Sherwin issued a written statement in which she admitted to making "an error" in agreeing to have her name attached to the article without making it clear that there was another author.

"I believe the article, which was peer-reviewed, represented sound and thorough scholarship, and in no way could be construed as promotion for any particular product or company," her statement read.

Still, an eight-month investigation found that Sherwin should have credited Mittleman.

The entire story can be read here.

Ghostwritten medical articles called fraud

CBC News

It's fraudulent for academics to give their names to medical articles ghostwritten by pharmaceutical industry writers, say two Canadian law professors who call for potential legal sanctions.

Studies suggest that industry-driven drug trials and industry-sponsored publications are more likely to downplay a drug's harms and exaggerate a drug's virtues, said Trudo Lemmens, a law professor at the University of Toronto. The integrity of medical research is also harmed by ghostwritten articles, he said.

Ghostwriting is part of marketing that can distort the evidence on a drug, Lemmens said. Industry authors are concealed to insert marketing messages and academic experts are recruited as "guest" authors to lend credibility despite not fulfilling criteria for authorship, such as participating in the design of the study, gathering data, analyzing the results and writing up of the findings.

Class actions involving drugs such as Vioxx, hormone replacement therapy and antidepressants suggest guest authors often fail to meet criteria for authorship, according to the policy paper in Tuesday's issue of Public Library of Science's journal PloS Medicine.

In the article, Lemmens and his colleague Prof. Simon Stern argue that legal remedies are needed for medical ghostwriting since medical journals, academic institutions and professional disciplinary bodies haven't succeeded in enforcing sanctions against the practice.

The institutions have divided loyalties, the authors say, which may explain why they've been slow to act. For example, universities wish to protect academic integrity while also protecting their employees from unjust accusation.

A legal response could act as a powerful deterrent, Stern said.

"Our theory does not depend on the accuracy of the data," Lemmens said in an email. "False representation of authorship is in our view fraud, regardless of the accuracy of the reporting."

Doctors and patients perceive published studies to be independent assessments made by academic experts, the authors noted.

Ghostwritten publications are used in court to support a manufacturer's arguments about a drug's safety and effectiveness, and academic experts who appear as witnesses for pharmaceutical and medical device companies also boost their credibility with the publications on their CV, Lemmens said.

The entire story can be found here.