A book app used AI to “roast” its users. He went Anti-Woke instead

Fable, a popular social media apps which describes itself as a paradise for “bookworms and bingewatchers”, has created an AI-powered year-end summary feature, which summarizes what book users are reading in 2024. It was meant to be played and funny, but some of the recaps took on a strangely combative tone. Summary writer Danny Groves, for example, asked if he’s “ever in the mood for a straight cis white male perspective” after labeling him a “diversity devotee.”

Meanwhile, Libri influencer Tiana Trammell’s summary ended with the following advice: “Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, OK?”

A reader summary as shown on the 2024 stats page from the Fable app.

Courtesy of Tiana Trammell

Trammell was stunned, and soon realized she wasn’t alone after sharing her experience with Fable recaps on Threads. “I received many messages,” he says, from people whose summaries had inappropriately commented on “disability and sexual orientation.”

Since the debut of Spotify Wrappedannual summary features have become ubiquitous on the Internet, providing users with a list of how many books and news articles they’ve read, songs they’ve listened to, and workouts they’ve completed. Some companies are now using AI to produce or completely augment how these metrics are presented. Spotify, for example, now offers a AI generated podcast where robots analyze your listening history and make assumptions about your life based on your tastes. Fable learned about the trend by using OpenAI’s API to generate summaries of the past 12 months of their reading habits for their users, but they didn’t expect the AI ​​model to spit out a comment that took the aspect of an anti-awakened expert. .

Fable later apologized on several social media channels, including Threads and Instagram, where posted a video of an executive issuing the mea culpa. “We are deeply sorry for the hurt caused by some of our Reader Summaries this week,” the company wrote in the caption. “We’ll do better.”

Kimberly Marsh Allee, Fable’s head of community, told WIRED that the company is working on a series of changes to improve its AI summaries, including an opt-out option for people who don’t want them and clearer disclosures. indicating that they are AI- generated. “For the time being, we have removed the part of the model that roasts the reader in the game, and instead, the model only summarizes the user’s taste in books,” he says.

For some users, adding AI doesn’t feel like an adequate answer. Fantasy and romance writer AR Kaufer was amazed when he saw screenshots of some of the summaries on social media. “They need to say that they have completely removed the AI. And they need to issue a statement, not just about the AI, but with an apology to those affected,” says Kaufer. “This ‘apology’ on Threads comes across as disingenuous, saying the app is ‘playful’ as if it somehow excuses racist/sexist/ableist quotes.” In response to the incident, Kaufer decided to delete his Fable account.

So did Trammell. “The appropriate course of action would be to disable the feature and conduct rigorous internal testing, incorporating newly implemented safeguards to ensure, to the best of our ability, that no other users of the platform are exposed to harm,” it says.