According to a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on September 23, there has been controversy in the French literary world. The issue stems from a Canadian-Haitian writer, who is considered a sensation, being accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to write his first novel.
38-year-old Tai Li Song Ōreli An recently won the Fnac Novel Award for his work *C'était ça ou mourir* (meaning "either that or die"). This is the first award presented in this year's literature awards season. He has also been nominated for France's most prestigious annual French literary award, the Goncourt Prize and the Renard Prize, both of which will be announced soon.
But on Tuesday, a little-known organization called “Balance ton Claude” (meaning “report your Claude”, referring to Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude) claimed that the book was “almost entirely” written by AI. O’Reilly denied this accusation.
The organization stated on X: “We tested several paragraphs from different parts of the manuscript, and the result was consistent: 100% generated by AI.”
According to the organization, the testing was carried out by a program called Pangram; the organization states that this program is “currently the most accurate,” and the probability of errors is “almost negligible.”
Born in Haiti and moved to Montreal in 2010, Aurelien immediately denied this accusation. He told Le Nouveau Monde: "I have always loved creative work and literature. I don’t understand why I felt I had to use machines."
He said that he is working with the editor to “compile a document” to prove that this book was indeed written by himself: “The traditions I inherited are those of Haiti and the Caribbean. Those images, repetitions, and rhythms are living language, my own expression.”
Grasse Publishing also defended him, stating that these accusations “caused extremely harmful damage to a writer with an extraordinary life experience,” and claiming that his “creations were original and powerful.”
The novel tells the story of a teacher who escapes gang violence in Haiti. After going through various adventures, she finally arrives in Canada, where she rekindles the understanding that “there is a right to breathe without fear”.
This controversy reminds us of the controversy sparked by Terrilean writer Jamal Nazir’s book 'Snakes in the Woods'. The Commonwealth Short Story Award that the book received was once revoked in July because it was accused of being written using generative AI. The award was later re-awarded to him, as the organizers stated they were certain that the work was indeed his own creation.
Critics of Pangram and other AI detection tools say these tools are unreliable, as they actually do not know who wrote or what a text is. Instead, they simply look for patterns that are common in AI-generated texts, but these same patterns can also appear in human works.
Research has found that AI detectors may misidentify human-written text as AI-generated, and may also fail to detect texts produced by artificial intelligence, especially when the text has been edited or rewritten.
The authors behind “Balance ton Claude” indicate that Pangram has only a probability of one occurrence per 24,400 times when it misjudges AI-generated text. The latest detectors no longer rely on text comparison to determine whether there is plagiarism; instead, they analyze probabilities and statistical data to determine whether certain language patterns indicate the use of AI.
The BBC stated that as AI becomes more commonplace, the controversy surrounding 'C'était ça ou mourir' will trigger a debate: in what ways should the creativity of humans and AI be combined to be considered acceptable. It is entirely possible for writers to first have AI generate text and then adapt it, or they may write original text first and then ask AI for review.
It is reported that Aurelien was born in 1988 in Gonaïves, a northern city of Haiti. Before leaving his country, his early works were mainly poems; later, in Canada, he worked as a journalist. This award-winning novel has been described by its publisher as “the best-selling book of the past 60 years,” and it is expected to be translated into about 20 languages. Aurelien told Liberation that the initial draft of this book was written in 2019—long before AI programs capable of generating text became widely available.
