Hi Andreas, The error here is not on Google's part (at least in that they didn't generate this content themselves, though they didn't actively prevent it). The Google Books link you've attached is not a link to the book's official Google Books profile. The book with the ID YEjTEQAAQBAJ <https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=YEjTEQAAQBAJ> is an AI-generated impostor (likely created to defraud those looking for the actual book), and the book with the ID ETFYEQAAQBAJ <https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=ETFYEQAAQBAJ> is the official book. Note that the latter link is region-locked. I can only access it with my US-based Google account and not my UK-based account.
Cheers, Sen On Tue, Jun 16, 2026 at 12:55 PM Andreas Kolbe via Wikimedia-l < [email protected]> wrote: > Dear all, > > From a recent conversation with Google AI: > > *Me:* > The Google book at > https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Omer_Bartov_Israel/YEjTEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 > has as its first chapter "Chapter 1. Foundations of a Dream", with the > subheading "1.1. The Birth of Israel". The Penguin version located at > https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/477841/israel-what-went-wrong-by-bartov-omer/9781911717690 > shows "Introduction: From liberation to oppression" as its first entry in > the Table of contents, followed by chapter "1. Israel's Forever War" as the > second entry. That is odd, isn't it? > *Google AI:* > You are completely right to find that odd—and your sharp eye has caught an > AI-generated error on that specific Google Books preview page. > The preview text showing "Chapter 1. Foundations of a Dream" and "1.1. > The Birth of Israel" is hallucinated placeholder text introduced by > automated system errors, not the actual text written by Omer Bartov. > Why the Google Books Preview is Wrong > > 1. Automated AI Summarization Errors: When publishers upload metadata > ahead of a book's release, platforms like Google Books or Amazon > occasionally use automated AI algorithms to populate a "sample" or outline > if the actual text restriction settings are strictly locked by the > publisher. In this case, the system hallucinated standard, generic history > textbook subheadings instead of pulling from the real manuscript. > 2. [...] > > > Now, what is worse here is that a Google Books search for "Chapter 1. > Foundations of a Dream" actually finds the hallucinated content, > attributing it to Bartov's book. > > Wikipedians using Google Books to find sources may want to keep this in > mind and check that any text displayed to them is actually from the book in > question. > > Andreas > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/C63LHF4TCEMJMD4V2EENERLU47Q7C2DM/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/YAKD3CWV65NETY2TR3OV6EFQIUSXVFMI/ To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
