The winner of France’s highest literary award admitted that he used AI three times in the writing process. He emphasized that he did not use AI as a ghostwriter.

France’s highest literary award, the Prix Goncourt, announced this year’s winner Philippe Jaenada on the 3rd.

First published 11-07 23:53

Update time 11-08 06:01

This year's winner of France's highest literary award, the Prix Goncourt, Philippe Jaenada, admitted after receiving the honor that he used artificial intelligence (AI) when writing the award-winning work, which attracted attention from the outside world. He explained on the 6th that he did not use generative AI to ghostwrite the content of the award-winning novel, but used AI in the writing process in a "gamey or ironic" way.

Janada won the Goncourt Prize on the 3rd for her novel "L'Inconnue du quai de Javel" (Chinese title tentative translation). This work describes the unsolved murder of a young woman in Brittany, France in the late 1940s. After winning the award, he admitted that he had used AI three times during the writing process.

He explained how he uses AI in a statement provided to AFP by publisher Flammarion. The first time was to ask an AI chatbot a question, and the result was "an answer that was ridiculously accurate and therefore seemed stupid and contradictory." The second time was in a more general way, using AI to research data.

He said that the third time, he became more playful and "hided a sentence generated by AI in a novel." This sentence generated by AI only had 10 words. Janada said that after the novel was published, dozens of readers had guessed which sentence it was. After the use of AI caused controversy, he has decided to publish the answer.

Janada said, "It is completely ridiculous to think that I have used generative AI to write anything in this novel." He said that he was "using AI playfully or ironically, and most importantly, without hiding that this was actually part of the plan before I even started writing."

Janada's remarks come amid a backlash in the global academic and literary circles over accusations of using AI in writing, with some writers even being expelled from literary awards. Thelyson Orelien, a Haitian-Canadian writer who was originally regarded as a favorite for the Goncourt Prize, was previously withdrawn from the shortlist due to doubts about the use of AI in his works; his Canadian publishing house confirmed last month that he had indeed used AI to assist in writing and announced the termination of cooperation with him.