Fake Books, Real Deception: How AI-Generated Summer Reading List Fooled Google, Readers

There could be plenty of good to come from artificial intelligence, including search results and fact-finding on the web.

While artificial intelligence can help write stories, a newspaper found out the hard way that it's important to check the work of a writer, even if it's a computer.

What Happened: The Chicago Sun-Times newspaper released a "Summer Reading lLst for 2025" as part of its "Best of Summer" section. The list ended up being made-up book titles from real authors and even later tricked Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL-owned Google search engine.

The entire list was made up by using artificial intelligence, as reported by 404 Media.

For example, a book on the list was titled "Tidewater" by Isabel Allende and included a description of the book.

The book list was written by Marco Buscaglia, according to the report.

"I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," Buscaglia told 404 Media.

Buscaglia told 404 Media the error was on them "100 percent," and they were embarrassed by the mistake.

404 Media found that other sections of the Best of Summer Heat Index special featured AI-generated sections. Quotes from experts appear to be made up or from people who are not real experts in their respective fields.

"We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously," the newspaper, which is owned by non-profit Chicago Public Media, said on Bluesky.

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Why It's Important: While many of the book titles and stories listed in the summer reading list were fake, web crawling done by Google search showed the books to be real.

404 Media shows a search for "Tidewater Dreams Isabel Allende" on Google. A previous search shows the AI Overview at the top of the search results to show that this title is a book by Isabel Allende, a collection of short stories. Allende is a real author.

"The stories explore theme of love, loss, and the power of memory, often featuring strong female characters and a mystical, almost magical realism style," the description on Google reads.

Allende never wrote a book titled "Tidewater Dreams."

Searching for the same four words — "Tidewater Dreams Isabel Allende" — today reveals a much different result.

Google's new AI Mode says the search "likely refers to a fabricated book title that was included in an AI-generated summer reading list published in several newspapers."

Google says the book title is not a recognized literary work.

While Google has corrected the error in search results, the national newsletter publishing a fake list of books gave some credibility to the titles that helped them briefly appear in Google search results.

An important reminder that not everything you read on the internet is true and not everything that appears in Google searches is true. It's always important to check and verify sources and, in some cases, look for more than one source.

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