Never heard that this is stopping anyone from reading recent books.

Maybe someone whose only method of selecting books is to scroll through Kindle and look at the titles, maybe they need to pay attention to publication dates. But the rest of the world picks books because they get a recommendation, they look at reviews, they know the author, etc.

NYTimes said that the new Marlon James book might be the book of the century so far. Hyperbole, I'm sure, but it's now on my reading list and I'm pretty sure it wasn't written by AI.

It is not so unusual to read books that have stood the test of time at least somewhat.

Newness is not really a valuable quality when it comes to books, barring some exceptions like books on subjects that change frequently and meaningfully.

Diminished quality however is a meaningful signal, and would give most serious readers pause.