He wrote a book on a rare subject. Then a ChatGPT replica appeared on Amazon.

Chris Cowell, a Portland, Ore.-based software developer, spent more than a year writing a technical how-to book. Three weeks before it was released, another book on the same topic, with the same title, appeared on Amazon.

“My first thought was: bummer,” Cowell said. “My second thought was: You know what, that’s an awfully long and specific and cumbersome title to have randomly been picked.”