Prix Pascal: If AI writes your book, are you still a writer?
France’s new Prix Pascal for AI-assisted books prompts a writer to reflect on the slow pleasures of making art, loss of individuality, and need to reclaim human imagination
A new French literary prize has been introduced for AI-assisted writing, known as the Prix Pascal de Littérature IA. To qualify for the award, entrants must submit a French-language manuscript, either fiction or non-fiction, containing around 300,000 characters that has been produced with the assistance of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
Participants are required to disclose the specific AI model and prompts they utilized. Applications are due by November 30 and will include a seed, the manuscript, and a technical file all submitted together. Ten finalists will be announced on December 4, and the winner will be revealed on December 15.
The prize's manifesto asserts that the submitted work must be beneficial, raise awareness, or contribute in an original way to solving one of the ecological, social, or ethical challenges facing humanity. The founders of the prize are Philippe Rodriguez, Albin Serviant, and Gilles Mentré, with the first two being technology entrepreneurs.
The prize aims to address the ongoing debate surrounding authorship in the age of AI-generated fiction. As the lines between human and AI-generated writing blur, the question of how to define authorship becomes increasingly complex.
Written by urgent.news from The Hindu - Sci-Tech's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
