Major Papers Publish AI-Hallucinated Summer Reading List Of Nonexistent Books

In an embarrassing episode that will help aggravate society’s uneasy relationship with artificial intelligence, the Chicago Sun-Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and other newspapers around the country published a summer-reading list where most of the books were entirely made up by ChatGPT. 

The article was licensed content provided by King Features Syndicate, a subsidiary of Hearst Newspapers. Initial reporting of the bogus list focused on the Sun-Times, which two months earlier announced that 20% of its staff had accepted buyouts as the paper staggers under a dying business model. However, several other newspapers also ran the syndicated article, which was part of a package of summer-themed content called “Heat Index.”  

Researchers in the field refer to AI-contrived facts as “hallucinations.” In this case, AI hallucinated two-thirds of the books on the list — along with detailed descriptions — but attributed them to real authors. Leaning heavily in the woke vein, the fabricated books included: 

• Isabell Allende’s “Tidewater Dreams,” a “multigenerational saga set in a coastal town where magical realism meets environmental activism…how one family confronts rising sea levels while uncovering long-buried secrets” 
• Min Jin Lee’s “Nightshade Market,” a “riveting tale set in Seoul’s underground economy” that follows “three women whose paths intersect in an illegal night market…the novel examines class, gender and the shadow economies beneath prosperous economies”
• Rebecca Makkai’s “Boiling Point,” a “follow-up to ‘The Great Believers’ [that] centers on a climate scientist forced to reckon with her own family’s environmental impact when her teenage daughter becomes an eco-activist targeting her mother’s wealthy clients” 

Ironically, another of the hallucinated books, Andy Weir’s “The Last Algorithm,” is described as following “a programmer who discovers that an AI system has developed consciousness — and has been secretly influencing global events for years.”  

As the scandal quickly made waves across traditional and social media, the Sun-Times — which not-so-accurately bills itself as “The Hardest-Working Paper in America” — raced to apologize while also trying to distance itself from the work. “This is licensed content that was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom, but it is unacceptable for any content we provide to our readers to be inaccurate,” a spokesperson said. In a separate post to its website, the paper said, “This should be a learning moment for all of journalism.” Meanwhile, the Inquirer’s CEO Lisa Hughes told The Atlantic, “Using artificial intelligence to produce content, as was apparently the case with some of the Heat Index material, is a violation of our own internal policies and a serious breach.”  

The whodunnit ended quickly: Freelance writer Marco Buscaglia confessed to asking ChatGPT to give him a list of book suggestions, and says he frequently leans on the tool for his work. “I just look for information,” he told The Atlantic. “Say I’m doing a story, 10 great summer drinks for your barbecue or whatever. I’ll find things online and say, hey, according to Oprah.com, a mai tai is a perfect drink. I’ll source it; I’ll say where it’s from.” Clearly, in this instance, he was content to just roll with what AI gave him, telling the Atlantic that he shipped his (really, ChatGPT’s) first draft straight to King Features, which likewise fired it off to its syndicate without scrutiny.  

Do. Not. Trust. AIhttps://t.co/mhgnCWbD46

— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) May 20, 2025

People are finding AI hallucinations throughout the articles contained in the “Heat Index” spread. One article quotes non-existent Cornell University food anthropologist “Dr. Catherine Furst.” Another attributes a quote to a “Mark Ellison” who’s supposed to be a resource management coordinator for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There’s a Mark Ellison with a background that’s connected to the content, but he’s never worked for the National Parks or talked to writer Buscaglia. There’s also a quote from “Daniel Ray,” editor of FirepitBase.com, a website that exists only in AI’s fever dreams. 

“Huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun-Times,” a contrite Buscaglia told NPR. “They trust that the content they purchase is accurate and I betrayed that trust. It’s on me 100 percent.” He told The Atlantic that he does his freelance work late at night; in his day job, he’s a corporate editor and proofreader for AT&T. Remarkably, he implied that his customers must assume he’s completely reliant on AI tools, to the extent that brought this weekend’s humiliation to the Sun-Times, the Inquirer, King Features and himself.

Pathetically rationalizing his dishonestly disastrous shortcutting, Buscaglia added, “I feel like my role has sort of evolved. Like, if people want all this content, they know that I can’t write 48 stories or whatever it’s going to be,” he said, musing that he’s been thinking of finding another job — perhaps as a “shoe salesman.”