Barnes & Noble chief executive James Daunt recently sat down with NBC News and voiced a thought that has been lingering in my mind. When questioned about books generated by artificial intelligence, Daunt replied, “I have no issue selling any title, provided it doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t, possesses an essential quality, and the reader wants it.”
On the surface, that sounds reasonable: as long as readers can see the label, they can decide for themselves. Yet a closer look reveals several unanswered concerns.
Is a simple label truly sufficient?
Barnes & Noble is a heavyweight in the publishing retail space. When the nation’s largest book seller signals that AI‑crafted titles are welcome on its shelves, it conveys to publishers, agents, and authors that this is a legitimate product class.
Consider what a genuine book represents. An author may spend months or years researching, drafting, revising, and shaping a work, infusing every page with the perspective forged by their life experiences. That human element is what makes books distinct and why we often read multiple takes on the same subject.
AI, by contrast, aggregates everything it has learned from human output, strips away the humanity, and spits out a generic product. It may boast flawless grammar, tight plot structure, and even an engaging story, but will it carry the human touch that makes a book special? Most likely not. At best, it mimics, borrowing from the great works written by humans.
When a major retailer shrugs and declares AI titles are fine as long as they’re labeled, it erodes the notion that a book is a human endeavor. Moreover, who decides what qualifies as AI‑written and what the label should look like? Is it enough for the label to be hidden in fine print where only the diligent will spot it?
Even with a clear label, what does that achieve? Would you let a thief into your home just because they wear a “thief” badge? It’s absurd. Any AI‑generated book, no matter how polished, is essentially a thief in disguise, pilfering stories from human authors without consent.
The human cost of letting AI books onto our shelves
Physical bookstores have limited shelf space. Allowing AI titles to occupy that space does not create new room; it displaces works written by humans. Without a robust system—something Barnes & Noble does not appear to have—readers will struggle to tell human‑authored books from AI‑generated ones.
Daunt even admitted that the chain might already be selling AI titles unknowingly. “We have 300,000 titles across all of our stores. Do we think some of those may be AI? The chances are that they are, but we’re not really conscious of them,” he told NBC News. That is far from the reassuring confession he seems to think it is.
What you see is what you buy. If thousands of shoppers walk into a store and see AI titles prominently displayed, many will pick one up, generating revenue for a megacorporation or an AI entrepreneur treating books as a side hustle. That sale could have gone to an author who truly earned it.
I’m not claiming every human‑written book is a masterpiece—I’ve penned a few duds myself. But even a mediocre book reflects real effort, so the sting of the purchase is softer.
Imagine how it would feel if your own books were produced by a prompt. Because AI can churn out titles far faster than any human, opening the floodgates will inundate the market. The e‑book arena is already saturated with AI filler; we don’t want our brick‑and‑mortar stores to look the same.
This isn’t happening in isolation
If Barnes & Noble were making this call alone, it would be one thing. Instead, it’s part of a broader, troubling trend.
Vox Media and The Atlantic have signed agreements with OpenAI, granting the company access to their entire content archives for model training. The New York Times struck its first AI‑content licensing deal with Amazon. USA Today, Condé Nast, and Hearst have also entered multi‑year licensing arrangements with Amazon.
AI licensing deals have become a significant revenue stream for publishers, making the agreements seem justified. Yet the writers whose work fuels these models are largely left empty‑handed.
The pattern is clear: media companies license their content to AI, AI uses that material to generate new content, retailers then agree to sell that AI‑generated content. This cycle will repeat until human writers are edged out and we are left holding a mountain of AI‑generated fluff, wondering how we arrived here.
Books remain one of the few realms where human creativity has not been fully overtaken by AI. Opening that door—even with a label attached—sets a precedent the industry will struggle to reverse. Some doors should stay closed, no matter how tempting the profit behind them may appear.