Are you interested in finding out how artificial intelligence deals with book recommendations?
Can it pose a serious threat to book reviewers and bloggers who live thanks to traffic from Google web search?
Take a look at how Google Bard has compiled a list of the best books published in 2023 so far.
I have chosen Google Bard because the free version of ChatGPT doesn’t come with the ability to crawl the web for current sources.
I also picked up the Bard because I wanted to check out how Google web search is involved in processing the answer.
Google Bard as a book recommendation tool
▸ I typed the prompt: “List 10 best books published in 2023 so far”.
▸ The tool returned a list of 10 titles with authors’ names and book cover previews. I believe that each book cover was linking to a website that Google identified as the original source of the image. In most cases, Google Bard links directly to the publishers, such as Harper Collins or Macmillan.
▸ Google Bard returned a list “according to TIME” – but without the link to the source article. I had to write the next prompt to make Bard reveal that source link. It also provided information that the TIME article was written by Jennifer Senior. It’s not true – it was written by Annabel Gutterman.
▸ And here comes Google web search. The TIME’s article, called “The Best Books of 2023 So Far” which Google Bard is using as a source of the list, is #1 Google web search result for a phrase “best books of 2023 so far”. So, if you are the top search result for a certain phrase, you may be quoted by AI – but as I said before, Google Bard does not reveal the source of the answer until you deliberately ask for it.
▸ Google Bard is 90% accurate. The list starts with The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis. This book in not included in the original article by the TIME magazine. However, it opens the list of the best books of 2023 published by the Vogue. The Vogue’s article is #2 on the list of Google web search results. The Bard is mixing the content from different sources, and wrongly attributes it to only one of them.
▸ I asked the Bard to come up with short, one sentence descriptions of each book. I have tested a few books and the explanations are correct.
Conclusions
When you use Google Bard for the list of best products in a specific category:
▸ It returns the answer based on top Google web search results matching your prompt.
▸ It’s not 100% accurate in returning the content from the source article.
▸ It omits the source article and links to either the producer of the product or a store where you can buy it.
Content creators who have built their businesses on the “best of” lists are doomed.
Best books of 2023 according to Google Bard
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis: A dark and suspenseful novel about a group of wealthy teenagers who are stalked by a serial killer.
A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung: A memoir about Chung’s adoption from South Korea and her search for her birth parents.
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig: A biography of Stephen King, one of the most successful authors of all time.
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez: A collection of short stories that explore the dark side of human nature.
The Wager by David Grann: A true crime story about a group of scientists who made a $1 million bet on whether they could predict the spread of a deadly virus.
This Other Eden by Paul Harding: A novel about a man who returns to his childhood home after his parents’ deaths.
Greek Lessons by Han Kang: A novel about a woman who travels to Greece to learn about her ancestry.
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey: A novel about a woman who creates a fake identity online and then becomes obsessed with the person she created.
Lone Women by Victor LaValle: A collection of short stories that explore the lives of women who are struggling to find their place in the world.
Paper Names by Susie Luo: A novel about a Chinese-American family who must come to terms with their past when their grandmother’s ashes are returned to them.
Google Bard pulled 90% of the content from TIME’s list The Best Books of 2023 So Far.
Reader Updated 