Fable, a popular social media app which describes itself as a haven for “bookworms and bingewatchers,” created an AI-powered year-end summary feature recapping the books users read in 2024. It was meant to be fun and fun, but some recaps took a different turn. your strangely combative tone. Writer Danny Groves’ summary, for example, asked if he was “ever in the mood to hear the perspective of a cis, heterosexual white man” after calling him a “diversity enthusiast.” .
Literary influencer Tiana Trammell’s roundup, meanwhile, ended with the advice: “Remember to surface for the occasional white author, okay?”
Trammell was stunned and quickly realized she wasn’t alone after sharing her experience with Fable recaps on Threads. “I received several messages,” she said, from people whose summaries contained inappropriate comments about “disability and sexual orientation.”
Since the beginnings of Spotify wrappedAnnual recap features have become ubiquitous on the Internet, providing users with insight into how many books and news articles they have read, songs they have listened to, and workouts they have completed. Some companies are now using AI to produce or entirely augment the presentation of these metrics. Spotify, for example, now offers a AI-generated podcast where robots analyze your listening history and make guesses about your life based on your tastes. Fable followed the trend by using OpenAI’s API to generate summaries of the last 12 months of their reading habits for its users, but it didn’t expect the AI model to spit out comments that take the look of an anti-woke expert. .
Fable later apologized on several social networks, including Threads and Instagram, where he posted a video of an executive issuing the mea culpa. “We are deeply sorry for the harm caused by some of our reading summaries this week,” the company wrote in the caption. “We will do better.”
Kimberly Marsh Allee, Fable’s community manager, 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 it and information clearer indicating that they are AI. generated. “For now, we’ve removed the part of the template that playfully roasts the reader, and instead the template simply summarizes the user’s taste in books,” she says.
For some users, adjusting the AI does not seem like an adequate response. Fantasy and romance writer AR Kaufer was dismayed when she saw screenshots of some summaries on social media. “They need to say they are removing AI completely. And they need to issue a statement, not only about AI, but also apologizing to the people affected,” says Kaufer. “These ‘apologies’ on Threads don’t seem sincere, mentioning that the app is ‘fun’ as if it’s somehow excusing racist/sexist/ableist quotes.” In response to the incident, Kaufer decided to delete his Fable account.
Trammell too. “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 their ability, that no other users of the platform are exposed to damage,” she said.
