Winner of a literary prize, a Japanese writer admits to having used ChatGPT

In 2023, artificial intelligence has invaded Amazon’s Kindle aisle. In 2024, it will conquer the hearts of the most uncompromising readers.

ChatGPT is very versatile. You can ask general knowledge questions, correct a document or summarize it. It can also generate a cover letter, a task list, and can even be used to find the recipe for the best milkshake in the galaxy.

It is therefore tempting to use this tool to facilitate more arduous and tedious tasks, such as an essay or writing a book. Like Rie Kudan, a Japanese writer who has just added fuel to the debate on the place of generative AI in art.

An unexpected collaboration?

If you learned that your favorite writer’s latest work was partly written by ChatGPT, how would you react? This question no longer needs to be asked for fans of Rie Kudan, because that’s exactly what she did for her latest title, Tokyo-to Dojo-to.

The 33-year-old artist, in fact, declared having “ used the full potential of AI to write this book “. No less than 5% of all the characters in the work were generated by the OpenAI tool, mainly dialogues taken from conversations between it and ChatGPT.

She would have confided to the conversational program thoughts of which she “ can’t talk to anyone else », thus creating an interaction which would have freed his creativity… before copying and pasting certain passages. Which is perhaps not so surprising, coming from an author who has regularly dealt with the theme of artificial intelligence in her works.

But this is not just any book written by just anyone. Kudan has just received the Akutagawa Prize, the most prestigious Japanese literary prize. And for good reason: according to the jury, Tokyo-to Dojo-toliterally ” Tokyo Compassion Tower “, would be a ” so perfect that it is difficult to find fault “.

Hats off to the artist, and… congratulations to the engineers behind ChatGPT?

An event that could have a significant impact

So, stroke of genius or undeserved success? In a way, Kudan’s case is very similar to that of Kris Kashtanova and her graphic novel Zarya of the Dawn, whose illustrations were generated using Midjourney. In 2022, the United States Copyright Office ruled that the various choices made by the artist gave him legal authorship of the work. The same could be said of our Japanese author, who simply used a tool like any other.

However, Zarya of the Dawn indicated on its cover that it had been created using artificial intelligence, which is not the case for Tokyo-to Dojo-to. And this is perhaps where the problem lies: would the book have received such prestigious recognition if its author had indicated her modus operandi? We will have to wait to find out, because for the moment, the Akutagawa Prize organization has not made any comments.

Regardless, this news comes as lawsuits mount against companies like OpenAI, and AI is increasingly at the heart of debates and policy interventions. It is also not impossible that Japanese politicians will look into the subject in the days to come, given the importance of the event.

Source : Franceinfo