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Jul 29 2011

Singularity: A Wikifocus Book by George Andersen

Posted by Frank Whittemore in Publications

Singularity: A WikiFocus Book (WikiFocus Book Series) by George Andersen was published on July 2, 2011. Price $1.99.

Can anyone explain to me in detail how this book was produced? To what extent was it automated? Is this an early example of a book being produced by a robot?

Who or what is this George Andersen who is credited with 692 books by Amazon.com over a period of just months?

What are WikiFocus Books? What is the WikiFocus Book Series? What is WikiFocus Books International?

Here’s a clue found on Amazon.com – WikiFocus Books are collaborative books designed for education on specific subject matter. Our motto is “Collaborative Books for Creative Minds” and it is our mission to provide focused content for both educational and entertainment purposes. We present targeted information on specific subjects which are compiled from online collaborative resources from across the globe. Some text and images contained in this book have been reused and/or repurposed for commercial distribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

Can anyone translate the above clue into English for me? What is really being said here? To what extent are these books being written by an automated process?

Again the book that started me on this post which I just completed reading is Singularity: A WikiFocus Book (WikiFocus Book Series) by George Andersen. It was published on July 2, 2011. Price $1.99.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2011 at 6:39 am and is filed under Publications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “Singularity: A Wikifocus Book by George Andersen”
  1. Don McArthur says:
    July 29, 2011 at 7:19 am

    It’s another project by Nathan Myhrvold, and if you don’t buy the book after looking at the listing, he’ll sue you for IP theft.

    • Frank Whittemore says:
      July 29, 2011 at 7:58 am

      Don,

      Please supply a link to information that will support your comment linking Nathan Myhrvold to WikiFocus Books, the WikiFocus Book Series or WikiFocus Books International? Thanks.

      • Don McArthur says:
        July 29, 2011 at 10:39 am

        Clearly, artificial intelligence software entities are not ready for prime time.

        • Frank Whittemore says:
          July 29, 2011 at 11:55 am

          Don,

          Please supply a link to information that will support your comment linking Nathan Myhrvold to WikiFocus Books, the WikiFocus Book Series or WikiFocus Books International? Thanks.

  2. Doug Sharp says:
    July 29, 2011 at 1:07 pm

    I was just given (as a joke gift) a book about one of my computer games that was generated from Wikipedia content: http://www.amazon.com/ChipWits-Lambert-M-Surhone/dp/6134751707/
    The book reprints the 1 page in Wikipedia about ChipWits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChipWits and then has page after page of other Wikip articles about computer games – obviously assembled by an algorithm using keywords.

    One of the human “editors” of these Betascript books is Lambert M. Surhone, who has over 103,000 books listed on Amazon. Betascript’s whole business model is based on pissing off customers who order one of their books without seeing the fine print that they are merely reprinting Wikipedia text. Not sure if the eBook you just read is from a similar enterprise.

    I do own a few books that I know were written by computers, including the classic: http://www.amazon.com/Policemans-Beard-Half-Constructed-Computer/dp/0446380512

  3. Mike says:
    July 31, 2011 at 4:24 am

    It’s almost certainly a scam book. That is, a book that consists solely of content ripped from Wikipedia (possibly from other online sources as well, but probably not). Normal modus operandi is they take a Wikipedia article, crawl all the links from that as well, and compile the whole lot into a shitty pseudo-book, then list it on Amazon and elsewhere. Little or no input from the ‘author’ required, the process is entirely automated. Without actually paying for it, it’s impossible to tell, but it seems pretty obvious from the quoted chuink of text. In short – avoid. I hate giving money to scammers, even if it’s only $1.99.

    • George says:
      August 3, 2011 at 9:38 am

      Mike you are using the term “scam” in an unfair manner. The publishers of this book are very upfront that the content is derived from Wiki-type online sources. They communicate that very clearly in the description of each book and even directly in each and every book title.

      Keep in mind that they are still adding value by compiling such sources and providing readers with “focused” subject matter.

      Scammers use deceit as a weapon. It is clear that WikiFocus Books is not being deceitful at all. They are being entirely transparent.

      The choice is up to the informed buyer, who knows exactly what they are buying. And at $1.99 each, WikiFocus Books is charging a fair price for the content they deliver.

      Remember, “caveat emptor” – Let the buyer beware.

      Also, this website is a great blog on the singularity Frank! Nice work.

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