Howzat? Merv Hughes biography among books suspected to have been fed to AI

A folksy Congresswoman is taking on a progressive Muslim dubbed the Mamdani of the Midwest in the high stakes Democratic primary in the US state of Michigan — which is being seen as a referendum on the future direction of the party still licking its wounds from the brutal 2024 presidential election defeat. Emily Lawler, the State Government and Politics Editor for the Detroit Free Press, previews the race. We know Artificial Intelligence has a huge appetite for all the good things that make us human, like music and art, now it seems it’s coming for our rare and out of print books. Emanuel Maiberg from independent online journal 404 Media explains how a sudden and unexplained surge in demand tipped booksellers off to this strategy, whilst Australian bookseller Karl Slotte says he's had some curious requests of his own lately.