1. The latest author to have their book publishing deal scrapped due to accusations of AI use is Nigerian author Jerry Adedayo Falade. His book, Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body, sparked a bidding war among publishers that reportedly garnered offers from six figures all the way up to $2 million for the book to be published in 2028 by Minotaur/The St. Martin’s Publishing Group/Macmillan Publishers. The deal was to include a follow-up book as well. That all fell apart when Falade’s book agents, Marc Gerald of Europa Content in the U.S. and Sandy Hodgman of Hodgman Literary, dropped the writer over concerns about how the book was produced.
“[The author] produced an incredible manuscript that dazzled us and the top publishing professionals around the world. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to authenticate how the manuscript fully evolved from origin to completion. During the submission process we vetted the manuscript with [the author] for AI and felt trusting in his reassurance that it was written without utilizing AI as a resource in the writing or editorial process,” reads a statement obtained by Deadline back in July. “We can no longer substantiate that, and we are withdrawing the book. This raises so many questions about authorship and what AI means for this industry but those are questions for another day. We regret that our enthusiasm led to this outcome and we apologize to our publishing partners.”
Since then, Falade has denied using AI to write the book but confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that he used an open source AI tool for research details “and not for writing the book itself.” Taking his thoughts to Instagram, Falade wrote, in part: “I don’t drink or smoke. Writing has always been my escape route since 2017. Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body is my work.”
This Will Happen Again: I’ve been following most of the AI book publishing stories as they’ve unfolded in real time. And while I’m very much of the belief that there are occasional racial as well as class biases in U.S. book publishing, I don’t think this and a few other AI-related incidents are about targeting a particular ethnic group, as Falade indicated in a statement to The Guardian. The most recent example I would point to is Steven Rosenbaum, who is not black, and who quickly had high-profile speaking gigs canceled after a New York Times article exposed his book as being laced with AI outputs and AI-generated mistakes.
Rather than a bias against a particular group, I think what is actually happening here is a bias against AI. Some of that anti-AI sentiment is cultural, with the thinking being that a human should be the sole author of a book with their name on it. However, some of the anti-AI stances are coming from a legal perspective. The U.S. Copyright Office has already made its stance clear that AI-generated work cannot be copyrighted, which puts any book publisher looking to exploit the rights of a book for film or TV adaptation in peril.
But since we have yet to produce an AI detector that can stand up to legal scrutiny in court, right now readers, publishers, and agents are operating on a combination of experiential analysis (“does this read like AI”), trust in the creator, and an overall honor system. There is no AI detector that can render undeniable proof of AI-generated text. These tools can still only offer clues, which are sometimes wrong, depending on which AI detector you use.
However, I believe this entire debate will soon fade into the rearview mirror of publishing history for two reasons. First, AI is constantly evolving and getting better. At some point, probably soon, it will be impossible for anyone, whether an experienced editor or even an AI detector, to catch any sign of AI-generated text. So what we’re experiencing now is kind of a delusional honeymoon that ignores the rapid trajectory of AI models.
The second reason has to do with the audience: Increasingly, I’m beginning to wonder if readers care or not. Although I’m conversant in a number of AI tools, as a lifelong pre-AI creator in visual art, books, journalism, and film, I still prefer to get my art from humans who actually are good at more than just prompting and affixing their names to the outputs, even if done very creatively. So the prospect that audiences might soon not care about AI versus human-created art isn’t something I welcome, but it’s a reality I’ve come to grips with as possibly occurring in the near future. Gen Z seems pretty AI-averse today. But trends and minds change quickly, nothing is static.
AI & Race: As for the claim from the author that a particular group of authors is being targeted due to their ethnicity regarding AI claims in book publishing, absent a thorough investigation, I haven’t seen enough data to support such a claim. But I can say that I met with Falade’s former book agent, Gerald, many years ago in New York City. At the time, he was engaged in republishing older black pulp fiction novels as well as developing newer black writers focused on genre fiction.
I don’t know what Gerald is up to today beyond this new story. And I do not profess to know what his general ethical posture or business practices are in 2026. But of all the people in book publishing to accuse of having a race-based bias against black authors and their ability to produce excellent work without the aid of AI, I’d have a difficult time casting Gerald in that particular light, given what I witnessed from him many years ago. If new information is uncovered, I’m more than willing to change my opinion on the matter.
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MAN AND ROBOTS is a weekly column from MARS Magazine on AI, Hollywood, and the future of work. All editorial text is written by humans.
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