New prize launches for books co-written with AI

The Prix Pascal de Littérature IA has been launched, offering a new prize for books co-written with AI assistance. This marks a significant development in the world of literature, as the competition invites authors to submit their unpublished manuscripts that have been co-written with artificial intelligence tools. The winning manuscript will be published, providing an opportunity for AI-assisted writing to gain recognition.

The prize, named after Blaise Pascal, a French polymath, is open to submissions from anywhere in the world, as long as the entrants are proficient in French. The texts must be between 10,000 and 50,000 words long and must include information about the AI model and prompts used to create the work. All major language models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and LLaMA, are permitted for use.

The competition's founders, Philippe Rodriguez, Albin Serviant, and Gilles Mentré, are technology entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds. Rodriguez is a partner at Avolta, a leading firm in European crypto and blockchain, while Serviant is a digital media entrepreneur and former chair of Têtu, an LGBTQ+ magazine. Mentré, a former civil servant and philosopher, is a professor at Harvard and the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

The Prix Pascal's creation follows months of controversy surrounding the use of AI in other literary awards, such as the Commonwealth short story prize, the Caine prize, and the Prix Goncourt. The competition aims to address concerns by requiring submissions to help solve an ethical, social, or ecological problem threatening humanity. Applications for the Prix Pascal opened on Tuesday and will close at the end of November, with a shortlist of 10 manuscripts to be announced before the winner is revealed in early December.