Fable, a book app, makes changes after offensive AI messages
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After a feature in the book-tracking app Fable shocked some readers, the company introduced safeguards.
PHOTO: ELLIUS GRACE/NYTIMES
Christine Hauser
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NEW YORK - Fable, a popular app for talking about and tracking books, is changing the way it creates personalised summaries for its users after complaints that an artificial intelligence model used offensive language.
In an Instagram post this week, Mr Chris Gallello, the head of product at Fable, addressed the problem of AI-generated summaries on the app, saying that Fable began receiving complaints about “very bigoted racist language, and that was shocking to us”.
He gave no examples, but he was apparently referring to at least one Fable reader’s summary posted as a screenshot on Threads, which rounded up the book choices the reader, Ms Tiana Trammell, had made, saying: “Your journey dives deep into the heart of Black narratives and transformative tales, leaving mainstream stories gasping for air. Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, okay?”.
Fable replied in a comment under the post, saying that a team would work to resolve the problem. In his longer statement on Instagram, Mr Gallello said that the company would introduce safeguards.
These included disclosures that summaries were generated by artificial intelligence, the ability to opt out of them and a thumbs-down button that would alert the app to a potential problem.
Ms Trammell, who lives in Detroit, downloaded Fable in October 2024 to track her reading. Around Christmas, she had read books that prompted summaries related to the holiday. But just before the new year, she finished three books by Black authors.
On Dec 29, when Ms Trammell saw her Fable summary, she was stunned.
“I thought: ‘This cannot be what I am seeing. I am clearly missing something here,’” she said in an interview on Jan 3.
She shared the summary with fellow book club members and on Fable, where others shared offensive summaries that they, too, had received or seen.
One person who read books about people with disabilities was told her choices “could earn an eye-roll from a sloth”. Another said a reader’s books were “making me wonder if you’re ever in the mood for a straight, cis white man’s perspective”.
Fable’s head of community, Ms Kim Marsh Allee, said in an e-mail on Jan 3 that two users received summaries “that are completely unacceptable to us as a company and do not reflect our values”.
She said all of the features that use AI were being removed, including summaries and year-end reading wraps, and a new app version was being submitted to the app store. NYTIMES
