By Natasha Livingstone Royal Correspondent and Chris Hastings Arts Correspondent and Daisy Graham-Brown
22:01 10 Feb 2024, updated 23:26 10 Feb 2024
Buckingham Palace last night reacted angrily over the sale of sickening fake books about the King’s cancer diagnosis written using artificial intelligence.
In an unprecedented statement, the Palace lambasted the sale of the ‘intrusive’ and ‘insensitive’ computer generated books that make false claims about the King’s health, adding its lawyers are closely looking at the issue.
It came after an investigation by this newspaper uncovered seven sham biographies being sold by the tech giant Amazon that falsely claim to share exclusive revelations about the King and appear on the site alongside best-selling legitimate royal biographies.
The tech giant, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, takes up to 65 per cent of the books’ sale price.
The books, which breach its guidelines, are littered with appalling lies and fake claims written by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, including:
- Vivid descriptions of the moment the King learned he had cancer, alleging he felt ‘fear, anger and despair’.
- Details of an operation removing a ‘tumour’ and Charles’s ‘fatigue’ following chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
- How the King was diagnosed with skin cancer, which the palace used as an ‘elaborate PR gambit’.
- Claims from a royal insider that Charles has prostate cancer with ‘a moderate risk’ of spreading.
- How an ‘unexplained accident’ hospitalised the King ‘just months’ into his reign.
Last night, after being presented MoS’s dossier of evidence, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: ‘Any such titles speculating about His Majesty’s diagnosis and treatment are intrusive, insensitive and filled with inaccuracies. Our legal team will be looking at the issue closely.
‘Our legal team will be looking at the issue closely.
‘We call on any individuals or organisations facilitating their sale to withdraw them immediately.’
Amazon deleted several of the grossly offensive AI books after being alerted by the MoS – but last night some, including one that invented the King had prostate cancer, were still on sale.
Our revelations expose the astonishing ease with which shameless individuals can harness AI to spread fake claims and misinformation about public figures online.
All the books identified by the MoS were penned by unknown authors and uploaded onto the Amazon site and via the site’s self-publishing platform.
There is no way of verifying the names of the individuals who claim to be the authors and Amazon last night refused to disclose their identities.
Some of Britain’s best known royal authors, as well as friends of the King, last night criticised the tech giant, the world’s fourth largest company, for selling the ‘disturbing and fake’ texts that ‘capitalised’ on the monarch’s diagnosis.
Lord Michael Dobbs, who was born an hour apart from the King and shared a 75th birthday party with him last year, said: ‘This intrusion on the King’s privacy when he is sick and suffering shows just how low some will stoop.’
The Conservative peer, who has suffered from prostate cancer himself, added: ‘Why is this rubbish still on sale? Amazon is a great firm, it can – and must – do better than this.’
Royal biographer Hugo Vickers said: ‘It’s in extremely bad taste for these books to be published by Amazon, especially as they share unhelpful misinformation.
‘This will inevitably be upsetting for the Royal Family. These AI books should be regulated and labelled, so we know they are irresponsible publications rather than well-researched, legitimate works.’
Celebrated novelist Dame Margaret Drabble said: ‘Can’t Amazon control these exploitative fantasists? Amazon is so clever when it suits it, surely it can get to grips with this, if it tries.’
The offensive material appeared on Amazon just hours after the announcement last Monday that King Charles had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer and was undergoing treatment.
The books masqueraded as legitimate biographies promising ‘exploration and analysis’ of the King’s condition. Prices ranged from £6.99 for an e-book to £15.99 for a paperback, which is printed and distributed by Amazon.
But they include inaccurate claims that have never been confirmed by the palace, a key sign it was generated by AI software that can ‘write’ a book in minutes using information from the internet.
One phoney biography, titled ‘The King’s Battle: Charles III and His Fight Against Cancer’, was published on Amazon on February 5, the same day the King’s cancer was announced.
It stated that surgery was the ‘first line of defence’ for the King as he underwent ‘the physical removal of the tumour from his body’.
While the King underwent a procedure for an enlarged prostate several weeks ago, Buckingham Palace has not confirmed what type of cancer the King has and has never mentioned a tumour.
The book added: ‘Charles also sought professional help. He consulted a psychologist, attended support groups. It helped him understand his emotions, manage them better.’
In its most disturbing passage, the book depicts the moment the King was diagnosed: ‘The physician, a wise old man trusted by generations of royalty, conducted a series of tests. His silence was unsettling. Finally, he looked at Charles and said, ‘Your Majesty, I’m afraid I have some grave news.’
‘The words hung in the air, ‘You have been diagnosed with cancer.’ The world seemed to stand still.’
The bogus book added that cancer made the King feel ‘vulnerable, uncertain, scared’, continuing: ‘Charles had to deal with the side effects of chemotherapy, the pain of surgeries, and the fatigue from radiation therapy.’
The palace has not revealed what treatment the King is receiving.
Another book, called ‘Behind Palace Walls: The Untold Secrets and Truth of the Cancer Diagnoses of King Charles’, was also published by Amazon on February 5.
Its pages falsely detailed how the King was diagnosed with ‘a relatively minor form of skin cancer’ and claimed that it was used as ‘an elaborate public relations gambit’.
It continued: ‘Cynics may argue that conveniently disclosing a low-risk skin cancer inoculates the palace against criticism should Charles’s health deteriorate in the future.
‘Once again, the spectre of image management overrides basic rights.’
It added that ‘Charles capitalise[d] on his cancer diagnosis’ to ‘consolidate perceptions’ of him as a trustworthy monarch.
It also invented an ‘unexplained accident’ that hospitalised the King ‘just months’ into his reign.
Another sham biography, published two days after the announcement, was titled ‘Royal insider on King Charles’ cancer diagnosis and what it means for Britain’s royal family.’
It claimed that: ‘According to our insider King Charles has been diagnosed with stage one prostate cancer.
‘Doctors have made clear Charles faces a moderate risk that the cancer spreads or returns without intervention.’
This is despite Buckingham Palace stating publicly that Charles does not have prostate cancer.
A fourth, called ‘King Charles: Reign of Resilience: A King’s Battle with Cancer and the Triumph of Courage’, said the diagnosis coincided with ‘revelations’ about the King wealth that ‘add[ed] a layer of complexity to the public discourse surrounding his cancer’.
In addition to the seven AI-books about the King’s cancer, the MoS found at least two general biographies of Charles with digitally created images of him on the cover.
They appeared alongside legitimate work such as the best-selling ‘Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story’ by Robert Hardman.
One, titled ‘The Untold Story of King Charles III and the Evolution of a Monarch (Charles III Hardman Book 1), appeared to misleadingly suggest Hardman was connected.
He told the MoS: ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or be outraged to see my name attached to such deplorable, risible and frankly incredible garbage.
‘They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Here’s an exception. This is at best a bad joke produced by the ramblings of a computer algorithm.’
Last night Royal author Margaret Holder took aim at the billionaire boss of Amazon, who according to Forbes this month is the world’s third richest man with a fortune of £140 billion.
‘Jeff Bezos is allowing false and intrusive ‘books’ to be sold through his company. These so-called writers using AI are capitalising on Charles’s cancer at a time of stress and worry for him and the Royal Family. Their ‘revelations’ are based on lies and fantasy.’
Dame Harriet Walter, one of the country’s most celebrated actors said: ‘This is beyond distressing. I could say robots don’t have feelings or good taste but maybe they have more of both than the humans responsible for cashing in on distortion and lies about King Charles’s health.’
And Lord Fellowes, the Oscar winning dramatist and creator of Downton Abbey said: ‘His Majesty has shown courage and generosity in sharing his condition, in order to help others with the same illness. For Amazon to make cheap profits out of his bravery is very disheartening.’
Buckingham Palace’s move to consider legal action against Amazon comes just two months after Kate Middleton’s uncle Gary Goldsmith threatened the company with litigation after it published three books purporting to be ‘memoirs’ written by himself about senior royals.
An Amazon spokesman said it invested ‘significant time and resources’ to ensure books published on its website followed its ‘content guidelines’.
They added: ‘We don’t allow AI-generated content that violates our content guidelines, including content that creates a disappointing customer experience.’
‘We have removed the titles we found that violated our guidelines.’
