France’s prestigious Goncourt prize drops novel after author accused of using AI

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The organisers of the prestigious Goncourt literary prize said on Friday they had removed a smash-hit novel by Haitian-Canadian author Thelyson Orelien from their longlist after accusations he used AI to write it.

Orelien denied using AI to write “C’etait Ca ou Mourir” (“It Was Either That or Die”) as the allegations ignited a debate about race, literary merit and originality that has roiled the French literary establishment.

The accusations about AI use were made this week by a little-known X account “Balance ton Claude.” Essayist Samuel Fitoussi later claimed ownership of the account, saying he managed it with other unidentified individuals.

The AI accusations were followed by reports that Orelien had committed plagiarism in earlier works. La Presse said that a 2012 short story by Orelien had plagiarized passages from a book by French author Louis Pauwels, while a 2013 opinion piece copied from The Philippine Star newspaper.

Orelien has yet to respond to those accusations, and did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

The Paris-based Academie Goncourt said it had taken note of the AI and plagiarism accusations, and had decided to remove his novel “to preserve the integrity of the Goncourt Prize and that of the Academie, whose central role is to promote and honour literature written by women and men.”

The Academie said it hoped its decision would show it was fully against the “creation of texts generated with the assistance of AI,” adding it would make no further comment before October 6, when it will announce its shortlist.

The debut novel by the Haitian-born author tells the story of a Haitian migrant who travels north through Latin America before ending up in Canada. It has won a host of other literary awards, and was due to be translated into multiple languages.

His French and Canadian publishers initially offered Orelien their full support over the AI allegations. They did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

“Balance ton Claude” said that running passages through AI detection tool Pangram showed the novel “was written almost entirely by artificial intelligence”. Some experts say the reliability of AI detection tools is questionable.

Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

享有盛誉的龚古尔文学奖主办方周五表示，在海地裔加拿大作家泰利森·奥雷利安被指控使用人工智能创作一部畅销小说后，他们已将该小说从长名单中移除。

奥雷利安否认使用人工智能创作了《要么那样，要么死》，而这些指控引发了一场关于种族、文学价值和原创性的辩论，这场辩论搅动了法国文学界。

本周，一个名为“Balance ton Claude”的鲜为人知的X账号提出了有关人工智能使用的指控。散文家塞缪尔·菲图西后来声称自己拥有该账号，并表示他与其他身份不明的人共同管理该账号。

在人工智能指控之后，又有报道称奥雷利安早期的作品存在抄袭行为。《新闻报》称，奥雷利安2012年的一篇短篇小说抄袭了法国作家路易·波维尔的一本书中的段落，而他2013年的一篇评论文章则抄袭了《菲律宾星报》。

奥雷利安尚未对这些指控作出回应，也没有回应周五的置评请求。

总部位于巴黎的龚古尔学院表示，他们已经注意到人工智能和抄袭的指控，并决定撤回他的小说，“以维护龚古尔奖和学院的声誉，学院的核心作用是促进和表彰男女作家创作的文学作品。”

法国科学院表示，希望其决定能够表明其完全反对“借助人工智能生成文本”，并补充说，在10月6日公布入围名单之前，不会再发表任何评论。

这位海地裔作家的处女作小说讲述了一位海地移民一路向北穿越拉丁美洲，最终抵达加拿大的故事。该书荣获多项文学奖项，并计划被翻译成多种语言。

他的法国和加拿大出版商最初对人工智能指控表示全力支持奥雷利安。周五，他们没有回应置评请求。

“Balance ton Claude”声称，通过人工智能检测工具Pangram分析文本段落后发现，这部小说“几乎完全是由人工智能生成的”。但一些专家表示，人工智能检测工具的可靠性值得怀疑。