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A Book App’s AI Called Its Users Too “Woke”

Fable got into some hot water with what they referred to as "playful roasts"—which "playfully" told readers to read more white people

Erica Ezeifedi

Associate Editor

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside of work, much of her free time is spent looking for her next great read and planning her next snack. Find her on Twitter at @Erica_Eze_.

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First thing’s first: let me clarify that my use of “woke” in the title refers to how a certain subset of the population incorrectly defines “woke,” and that the term as we know it today originally came into use in the Black American community in the ’60s. Read more about that here.

Now for this raggedy app—we are two minutes into 2025, and we’ve already got our first bookish scandal, courtesy of Fable. If you’re unfamiliar, Fable is a book club app we reviewed in 2022, and the issue comes from them trying to to do a little Spotify-esque end-of-year summary that gently roasted its members. But some of the roasts were giving more cross burning than playful jab, if you know what I mean.

Tiana Trammell, a book influencer and Fable app user, shared her reader summary, and…it’s a gross mess. It read: “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?” 

After sharing her reading summary with followers, some of them then shared how they received similarly offensive Fable reading summaries that focused on sexual orientation and disability instead of race.

Fable has since apologized across its social media accounts, and even included a video where a Fable exec comments on the issue and also apologizes. WIRED spoke with Kimberly Marsh Allee, Fable’s head of community, and she mentioned how the company is revising its AI summaries to allow readers to opt out of the “roasting,” and instead just get a straightforward summary of their year in reading. She said, “For the time being, we have removed the part of the model that playfully roasts the reader, and instead the model simply summarizes the user’s taste in books.”

There are, of course, people who think that Fable’s apology, and even their label of “playful roasts,” is too flippant, and think they should not only issue more sincere apologies, but also pledge to get rid of AI altogether.

You can read more about the whole situation at WIRED.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.

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