Rie Kudan or Rie Qudan revealed that her novel, which won Japan’s highest literary award for its story about futuristic Tokyo, in which generative AI is everywhere, is 5% AI.
Kudan’s book, “Tokyo-to Dojo-to” (Tokyo Sympathy Tower), is about an architect designing a high-rise prison tower in a near-future Tokyo. The architect, Sara Makina, calls the prison tower “Tokyo Sympathy Tower” and reflects a societal shift where prisoners are seen with sympathy. The novel discusses societal roles and the role of artificial intelligence.
Literary award groups and editors are re-evaluating their terms for future submissions because of the use of AI in Kurdan’s book.
Kurdan’s comments got a lot of attention on social media, “While I borrowed (from AI) in parts, I made the appropriate modifications to the story so as not to disrupt the text’s flow,” she said. “When you read it back, the applicable text barely makes up a whole page, and I think my comments were overblown,” Kurdan said in a press conference.
Editors want to require citations and be told beforehand if any literary works include AI-generated content.
CNN’s Christy Choi and Francesca Annio reported that the awards committee had praised Kudan’s novel as “practically flawless.”
The Akutagawa Prize is a literary award given biannually to emerging writers. It’s one of the most prestigious literary awards in Japan. The award is named after early 20th-century Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the “father of the Japanese short story.”
While only part of her novel was written with AI and has caught the attention of many people, Kurdan reiterated to CNN that she doesn’t plan to stop utilizing AI in her novels, “I plan to continue to profit from the use of AI in the writing of my novels while letting my creativity express itself to the fullest.”
