Japan’s Highest Literary Award Won by Author Using AI
Rie Kudan has won Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, with her most recent book: The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy. The judges praised the book, with one even calling it ‘flawless’.
What came next is unexpected. She revealed that she use AI to write parts of her novel (The Times). She revealed about 5% of the book was verbatim sentences she generated using AI.
This wasn’t the first time AI has won a top prize either. The winner of 2022’s Colorado State Fair’s prize for digital art also turned out to be AI-generated.
Nor is it the first time AI has won a writing prize. Journalism professor Shen Yang at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wanted to write a science fiction novel about the metaverse and humanoid robots. The AI ended up generating his entire book – which then took out a national science fiction award Jiangsu Science Writers Association . Using 66 different prompts, the AI drafted ‘Land of Memories‘ in just 3 hours.
After we went through dozens of prompts, the AI generated all of the content – from the pen name, title and text to accompanying pictures. And it’s not half bad. Here’s an excerpt:
In the metaverse’s edge, lies the ‘Land of Memories’, a forbidden realm where humans are barred. Solid illusions crafted by amnesiac humanoid robots and AI that had lost memories populate its domain. Any intruder, be it human or artificial, will have their memories drained away, forever trapped within its forbidden embrace.
Land of Memories
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