Letter from a Reader 5.22.25

AI scandals in the media and the law, Jane Austen's early works, and wacko conspiracy theories about Hitler's death

Jane Austen on a £10 bank note / International Monetary Fund

Is my income tainted retroactively? Shame fell this week on two newspapers for which I’ve reviewed books: the Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Inquirer. Both had recommended nonexistent titles on a summer reading list generated by AI for King Features, a Hearst syndicate.

I can’t clear my name by saying that at least I haven’t taken money from Hearst, because I’ve also written for two of its magazines, Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar. So let’s just say I hope my byline has appeared in no other publications that will have to wipe egg off their faces.

An AI scandal at a law firm

An AI-related disgrace also turned up here in Alabama. John Archibald, a two-time Pulitzer winner for al.com, summed it up in a column headlined: “High-priced Lawyers Apologize for AI Snafu, Throw Colleague Under a Bus.”

It happened when a big-ticket group of lawyers at Butler Snow in Huntsville were caught citing sources that didn’t exist or didn’t say what they claimed in court filings. The citations were “hallucinations” by artificial intelligence. Archibald wrote:

“U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco, in blistering filing Friday, demanded responses from the firm and four of its lawyers who signed off on the citations: Bill Lunsford; Matthew B. Reeves; William J. Cranford and Daniel Chism.

“They responded in writing Monday, individually and as a firm, begging the court for forgiveness and rolling Reeves under the bus.”

Charming.

Manasco plans to hold a hearing on June 2 about whether to sanction the lawyers and, if so, how severely. And all four might have gotten away with it had not opposing counsel Jamilah Mensah caught their misdeeds.

Archibald had a phrase for Butler Snow’s groveling apology, and it might also apply to the regrets offered by the Sun-Times and Inquirer: “Call it AI culpa.”

Cover of an audiobook of “Love & Freindship” / Audible

Jane Austen’s early works

Jane Austen, with her gift for skewering pomposity, would have known what to do with the Butler Snow fat cats. Or so I thought after hearing a delightful Zoom talk by Susan Lowell, the winner of the Milkweed National Fiction award and my co-conspirator in our classic-short-stories reading club on Substack.