Can artificial intelligence write a book on its own?
The case of the novel *C’était ça ou mourir*, which was disqualified from the Goncourt literary prize, has highlighted just how complex it is to prove the use of AI and has reignited the debate over whether it is ethical to do so
They are called AI detectors, and are supposed – and the conditional is a must here – to recognise whether a text has been written by a human or by artificial intelligence. Analyses carried out by these tools reveal the proliferation of so-called synthetic content: today, almost one in ten web pages shows signs of AI involvement, and in the book market, as many as 20 per cent of the latest self-published texts are flagged as being partly artificial.
The latest victim is the novel *C’était ça ou mourir* (“It Was Either That or Die”) by Thélyson Orélien. The writer was accused in an anonymous tweet from “Balance ton Claude” (literally “Expose your Claude”), which was later claimed by the essayist Samuel Fitouss. ‘We tested several passages at various points in the manuscript and almost always obtained the same result: 100% AI,’ the post reads.
The debate surrounding the book has made its way into the French and international press, leading to allegations of plagiarism and counter-accusations suggesting a political agenda lay behind the controversy: Orélien is, in fact, of Haitian origin, is Black, and his novel deals with the autobiographical theme of migration.
The complaints were brought to the attention of the jury of the prestigious French Goncourt literary prize, which excluded the novel from the shortlist. The aim was to ‘safeguard the integrity of the prize’ and to continue to ‘promote and honour literature written by women and men’.
The author, however, denied the allegations (“I’ve always loved creating and writing; I don’t see why I would have needed to use a machine”), and was also defended by his French publisher. Orélien explained to the newspaper *Libération* that ‘images, repetitions and rhythms are a living word’ and that they are, without a doubt, his own.
