Dunthorne frames AI scams as self-inflicted through training on stolen work
1 Nov 1 7:00 AM · 11d ago · 2 articles · 4 posts · 2 sources · development 1 of 1
Dunthorne argues the irony that the AIs generating scams have genuinely read all authors' books via training on copyrighted material, making scammers manipulate writers using AI versions trained on their own work.
“What makes it worse is that the AIs that help write these scams really have read all our books. So when writers receive these AI-assisted scam messages, we know we are being manipulated by a version of ourselves.”
Joe DunthorneJoe Dunthorne NovelistAnthropic AI companyGoogle Tech company
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Reported in the same hours no headline names this development itself — these 1 claim were published in its stretch
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first by Mastodon, 11d ago · also Guardian Books, Guardian Culture
What people said 9 voices · verbatim
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Writer Joe Dunthorne on the ever-growing scams attempted on authors https://www. theguardian.com/books/2026/nov /01/like-many-authors-im-bombarded-by-scam-fan-mail-i-wasnt-prepared-for-what-would-happen-when-i-wrote-back # books # livres # bookstodon
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Nobody really denies that but it’s still real that they basically scam each other knowing they’ll getting that money back invested into themselves. If you got external people shoveling money into the circulation, it’s only logical to completely overprice your own services (or hardware) because it doesn’t matter if you bill them 100€, 50000€ or a…
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"What makes it worse is that the AIs that help write these scams really have read all our books... So when writers receive these AI-assisted scam messages, we know we are being manipulated by a version of ourselves." https://www. theguardian.com/books/2026/nov…
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Robin Hobb made an announcement semi-recently that she wouldn’t be responding to fan emails anymore for this reason, when she used to reply to every single one. She said it used to be obvious when an email was fake or hiding a solicitation, but she’s spent too much time responding with a heartfelt email only for it to be followed up with a…
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Never engage the scammers, that's my rule on RedNote. This writer didn't seem to get the memo. https://www. theguardian.com/books/2026/nov /01/like-many-authors-im-bombarded-by-scam-fan-mail-i-wasnt-prepared-for-what-would-happen-when-i-wrote-back
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Actual writers are paid shit but actual writers are, to various degrees, already enmeshed in the publishing system and less likely to fall for this. New, amateur writers, who make enough money in their day jobs (or inheritance or pensions etc) to support enough time off to write will be more naive and lack knowledge of the system while being more…
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Great article about what happens when you reply to scam publishing emails. # writing https://www. theguardian.com/books/2026/nov /01/like-many-authors-im-bombarded-by-scam-fan-mail-i-wasnt-prepared-for-what-would-happen-when-i-wrote-back
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It’s the same thing that happened with the streaming boom. Everyone is rushing to be the go to provider, knowing that a lot of them will fail or be bought by the competition, but whoever survives will be disgustingly rich.
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That's the neat part, with ai they don't specialize, they just fill every possible space with scams and attacks.
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