Amazon’s ‘Ask My Book’ AI raises fresh questions about who controls an author’s words

Amazon

Amazon’s experimental “Ask My Book” artificial intelligence feature has reignited concerns among authors and publishers about consent, copyright and how creative work is used to train and power AI tools. The feature, which allows readers to ask questions and receive AI-generated answers based on the contents of a specific book, has been promoted as a new way to engage with texts. But for many writers, it has triggered unease about whether their work is being repurposed without clear permission.

Ask My Book functions by generating responses that summarise or paraphrase passages from a title, rather than directing readers to specific pages. Amazon has said the tool is currently limited, operates on selected books, and is intended to help discovery rather than replace reading. Even so, authors argue that the system effectively creates derivative content from their work, potentially undermining both royalties and authorial control.

Several writers have publicly questioned whether they were consulted before their books were made available to the tool. While Amazon maintains that participation is governed by existing publishing agreements, critics say those contracts were written long before generative AI existed and never contemplated conversational systems that can repackage a book’s ideas on demand. The concern is not just legal, but philosophical: who owns the meaning extracted from a book once an AI is allowed to interpret and reproduce it?

The controversy comes amid broader unease in the publishing world about AI training and usage. Authors’ groups in the United States and Europe have already challenged technology companies over the use of copyrighted texts in training large language models. In this context, Ask My Book is seen less as an isolated experiment and more as another step in a steady erosion of boundaries around creative ownership.

There are also commercial anxieties. Some writers fear that if readers can query a book for key arguments, themes or conclusions, they may be less inclined to buy or fully read it. Others worry about misrepresentation, noting that AI summaries can flatten nuance or distort an author’s intent, while still being attributed, implicitly or explicitly, to the original work.

Amazon has responded by stressing that the feature does not provide verbatim excerpts beyond what is already permitted and that authors can opt out in certain cases. It has also framed the tool as an enhancement to the reading ecosystem, comparable to search or recommendations. But for many in the literary community, those assurances fall short.

As generative AI moves deeper into publishing, Ask My Book highlights a central unresolved issue: whether consent should be explicit and granular, or whether broad platform agreements are enough. Until that question is settled, experiments like this are likely to face continued resistance from the very creators whose work makes them possible.