AI Detected in Almost 50% of Blinkist Book Summaries

With the growing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in various sectors, content creation has not been left behind. AI has found its way into numerous websites, online publications, and content generation platforms, including Blinkist.com, a popular book summary service. 

Blinkist has openly stated that they “currently use and explore Generative AI for various purposes, ranging from content creation and production to improving content personalization” (source). With the advancements and ability of AI tools like ChatGPT to generate content and efficiently summarize information, this isn’t surprising. Many companies and online tools are making their processes more efficient using AI technologies. 

However, we wanted to dig into this further to understand exactly how much AI is being used by Blinkist in their book summaries. This study aims to understand the prevalence of AI-generated content on Blinkist.com and its implications.

Quick Takeaways

• Approximately 48% of the analyzed book summaries on Blinkist.com were suspected to be AI-generated content.
• A significant portion (35.82%) of the book summaries had a high confidence score (90% or above) for being AI-generated.
• The categories with the highest average AI detected are Education, Economics, Politics, Marketing & Sales, and Management & Leadership. 
• While the most popular categories like Psychology and History have moderate levels of AI detected, categories with fewer articles like Education and Economics exhibit exceptionally high AI detection.

Methodology and Dataset

The analysis uses 402 book summaries from Blinkist.com, spanning various topics and genres. We only evaluated “Recently Added” book summaries, because we wanted to focus on summaries added since GPTs became publicly available. Each one was evaluated using the Originality.ai AI detection tool to determine whether it was AI-generated (>50% confidence) or human-written (<49.9% confidence). The book summaries were then categorized based on their AI confidence scores, with a score above 50% indicating suspected AI-generated content.

Our Analysis

AI vs. Human Content

Of the 402 book summaries analyzed, 193 were identified as AI-generated content, constituting 48% of the total dataset. This indicates that nearly half of the recent content on Blinkist.com is suspected to be AI-generated. The remaining 209 book summaries were classified as human-written content, constituting 52% of the dataset.

AI Content Distribution

The distribution of AI content was further analyzed based on the confidence score:

• 90%+ AI Content: out of the total book summaries, 144 (35.82%) were highly confident (90% or above) to be AI-generated.
• Below 90% AI Content: the remaining 48 book summaries (11.94%) had AI confidence scores ranging from 50% to 89.9%.
• This suggests that the Originality.ai detector had high confidence that a significant portion of the book summaries on Blinkist.com are suspected to be AI-generated.

AI Content by Confidence Score Range

The distribution of AI content was also examined across different confidence score ranges:

• 50-59% AI: 8 book summaries (1.99% of total, 4.15% of AI summaries)
• 60-69% AI: 10 book summaries (2.49% of total, 5.18% of AI summaries)
• 70-79% AI: 16 book summaries (3.98% of total, 8.29% of AI summaries)
• 80-89% AI: 14 book summaries (3.48% of total, 7.25% of AI summaries)
• 90-100% AI: 144 book summaries (35.82% of total, 74.61% of AI summaries)
• Most AI-generated content (74.61%) falls within the highest confidence range (90-100%)

Categorical Study: Top Five Most Popular Categories

• Psychology: 42.3% of book summaries within this category were suspected to be AI-generated (30 out of 71)
• History: 30.8% of book summaries within this category were suspected to be AI-generated (12 out of 39) 
• Personal Development: 50.0% of book summaries within this category were suspected to be AI-generated (19 out of 38) 
• Motivation & Inspiration: 51.4% of book summaries within this category were suspected to be AI-generated (18 out of 35)
• Money & Investments: 42.3% of book summaries within this category were suspected to be AI-generated (11 out of 26)

Categorical Study: Top Five Categories with Highest AI Detection Confidence

• Education - 100% AI: This category only has 2 articles, all of which are suspected to be AI content 
• Economics - 100% AI: With 3 articles, all of them are suspected to be AI content
• Politics - 78% AI: 7 out of 9 articles are suspected to be AI content. 
• Marketing & Sales - 71% AI: 10 out of 14 articles are suspected to be AI content. 
• Management & Leadership - 64%: 7 out of 11 articles are suspected to be AI content.

*Note: While the most popular categories like Psychology and History have moderate levels of AI detection confidence, categories with fewer articles above have high AI detection confidence and lower statistical significance.

Conclusion

This analysis shows us that Blinkist has very likely been integrating generative AI into the process of creating their book summaries, with nearly half of the analyzed summaries suspected to be AI-generated (or have used some AI to generate them). As AI technology continues to progress, it will be interesting to see what companies integrate AI, and how heavily they rely on it. Are users willing to continue paying for online tools and services or will more people prefer to use tools such as ChatGPT for their everyday tasks? That’s yet to be determined.