- Steven Rosenbaum's new book contains multiple AI-generated fabricated quotes and misattributions
- Rosenbaum admitted to using AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude during research and writing
- A fabricated quote attributed to Kara Swisher was found and publicly disproved by her
The "AI slop" era is officially here. Steven Rosenbaum's newly released book, The Future of Truth, has been exposed for containing more than half a dozen fabricated and misattributed quotes generated by AI. Following the discovery, Rosenbaum publicly admitted that the book had “a handful of improperly attributed or synthetic quotes", according to a report in The New York Times.
“As I disclosed in the book's acknowledgements, I used AI tools ChatGPT and Claude during the research, writing and editing process,” Rosenbaum told the publication.
“That does not excuse these errors, of which I take full responsibility. I am now working with the editors to thoroughly review and quickly correct any affected passages; any future editions will be corrected.”
Rosenbaum's insertion of AI hallucinations in his book was revealed when a fabricated quote attributed to prominent tech journalist Kara Swisher was discovered by the NYT. In a chapter about AI lies, Rosenbaum quoted Swisher as saying that “the most sophisticated AI language model is like a mirror” that “reflects our own morality back at us, polished and articulate, but ultimately empty behind the surface".
“It's not bound by Asimov's laws or any ethical framework, it's bound by the patterns in its training data and the objectives set by its creators,” the quote continued.
Swisher never made such a statement, telling NYT that the quote made her “sound like I have a stick up my butt, according to ChatGPT.”
In a chapter examining the impact of social media and manipulated videos on teenagers, Rosenbaum attributed two quotes to Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychology professor at Northeastern University, drawing them from her book, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain.
“Emotions aren't just reactions to truth — they're how we construct truth. When young people say something ‘feels true,' they're describing a sophisticated process of meaning-making that integrates emotional and social signals," the book quote Barrett as saying.
Barrett later clarified that quotes do not appear in the book and that they are wrong. “I would never say ‘emotions aren't just reactions to the truth', they are not reactions and ‘truth' in science is a complicated concept that I tend to avoid,” Barrett said.
Despite the AI errors, Rosenbaum said the book raises important questions about truth, trust, AI and its impact on "society, democracy and editorial".
