The writer who won the main Japanese literary award with a novel written with support from ChatGPT: “AI helps you compensate for your weaknesses”

Rie Kudan, the 33-year-old Japanese writer who won the Akutagawa award, the highest award in Japanese literature, with a book written 5% with ChatGPT, encourages writers to use generative artificial intelligence in their creations. “If you think carefully about how to use it and face your own weaknesses, AI helps you compensate for them,” says the 33-year-old author at the headquarters of her Shinchosha publishing house, which announces the work with the slogan “a book of prophecies in the era of generative artificial intelligence.” However, he maintains that the help of the AI ​​was very small: “Only one page in 144″.

The novel Tokyo To Dojo To (Tokyo's Tower of Compassion, in literal translation) was described by the jury as an “almost perfect narrative” and earned Kudan the literary prize created in 1935 and which has launched the careers of authors such as Kenzaburo Oe (Nobel Prize). literature 1994).

What has become the most famous conversation with a machine in Japanese literature takes place when the protagonist of the novel, an architect who has been asked to design an elegant skyscraper-prison in the center of Tokyo, asks a artificial intelligence system called AI-built, explain the reason for applying the Latin term homo miserabilis to criminals.

Dissatisfied with the condescending tone of the response, she asks the system if it is aware of her inability to read, to which the AI, designed to generate text-based information, responds no, adding that illiterate is a pejorative term that can be discriminatory. “I wanted to show a reflection on the essence of language,” says Kudan.

The statement that the book contained 5% generated with AI produced “a certain nervousness” among the editors, says its author and reiterates her surprise with the headlines in the world press. On Amazon's sales website, one reader describes the inclusion of AI dialogues as “refreshing,” while another complains that style takes precedence over story and recommends it “for an entrance exam to a Japanese university.”

Kudan, who declares herself a fan of Pedro Almodóvar's films and a follower of Yukio Mishima, suggests that just as The Golden Pavilion (1956), his work can be read as a book on architecture. He assures that he will continue using generative artificial intelligence in his creations because “it is a technology that can expand your potential.” He adds that Japanese regulation regarding the use of AI is still “very ambiguous.”

Artificial intelligence in Japan is widespread among companies, according to a recent survey by public television NHK. Of 100 large Japanese firms, 86 confirmed that they use it to create or summarize documents, or in combination with their own systems in advanced applications.

After the European Parliament achieved the majority support of its members for what will be the world's first comprehensive law to regulate artificial intelligence, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) announced that it will propose a new law with similar objectives this year. anus.

Many Japanese companies are guided by regulations of the Japan Deep Learning Association (JDLA), an academic group founded in 2017 to promote the use of new generative technologies in industry and address demographic contraction.

Its regulations govern a prestigious science fiction literary contest that bears the name of the famous author Shinichi Hoshi (1926-1997), and which according to its website accepts works manufactured with artificial intelligence as long as they are subsequently produced by a human being.

Another requirement is to present the prompt, or request, whose content allows us to know the interests and original intention of the user. It also recommends not including in this request the name of any author other than the work and ensuring that the platform used has no restrictions on publishing the resulting text in physical or digital formats.

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