Novel Wins Literary Prize Worth 20,000 Euros, Then Accused by AI of Being Its Own Creation
Accusations that a prize-winning novel was written by artificial intelligence.
Translated by Qiyas from الأنباء — Original source
The joy of a Peruvian writer who won an international literary prize turned into a wide-ranging controversy after a specialized tool for detecting AI-generated text indicated that 99% of his winning novel may have been written by a machine, despite the competition’s rules prohibiting the use of such technology.
In July, writer David Silva Rojas won the “Almadia Ventosa Irujo” prize for short fiction, worth 20,000 euros, for his novel “Where the Water Works,” which was selected from 2,204 submissions.
However, the Spanish newspaper El País submitted the novel, which comprises around 26,000 words, to analysis using the Plagiarism Detection Tool “Bingram,” with results suggesting that 99% of its text may have been AI-generated.
The findings embarrassed the awarding institution, particularly since the judging panel, which included three prominent female writers, had praised the novel’s literary style.
Mexican publisher Almadia swiftly canceled the book’s launch events in Spain and opened a detailed review to investigate the allegations.
In response, the writer denied using AI and expressed his willingness to provide the novel’s drafts and writing stages to substantiate his position.
The publisher emphasized that detection tools are not infallible and that their results alone are insufficient to prove the use of AI.
Amid the writer’s defense and the software’s suspicions, the case has reignited a thorny question in literary circles: how can one distinguish between human creativity and machine-generated text?
