The literary world was rocked last month when it emerged that Granta magazine had published on its website a Commonwealth Prize-winning short story that on closer inspection appeared to be written by Artificial Intelligence (AI). From the time of its inception in 1889, and its resurgence in the 70s as the magazine for “new writing”, Granta has enjoyed the kind of status few magazines that aren’t finance or fashion-related do. To be published in its expensive pages is a dream many writers, old and young alike, harbour. So, the stunned response that greeted this information was only natural.

‘The Serpent in the Grove’ by Jamir Nazir, the 61-year-old Trinidadian writer who won a prize for best short story from the Caribbean, was published on the website on May 12. Within days, readers began calling it “AI slop”, pointing out tropes and metaphors AI writing produces, saying the piece was rife with them. Whether or not the story is “good” is as subjective as with any piece of art, but the accusations included someone running the story through Pangram, an AI detection platform, with results showing it was 100% AI generated.

Granta responded that they had consequently checked the same on AI chatbot Claude, which said the piece was “almost certainly not produced unaided by a human”. This sounds almost as vague as Granta publisher Sigrid Rausing on the matter: “It may be that the judges have now awarded a prize to an instance of AI plagiarism — we don’t yet know, and perhaps we never will know.” The word “plagiarism” reveals the opinion that this is theft or at the very least regurgitation, as opposed to collaboration or assistance resulting in a new original work. AI language models are trained on datasets made up from the public Internet, yes, but also largely, using books.

“But, how couldn’t they tell?” was a question many asked. One argument has been that in this flimsy new world, editors who have eschewed AI may need to engage with it more, simply to be able to spot it. Sayantan Ghosh, Editorial Director at Simon & Schuster India, says the incident has “started a necessary and long overdue conversation”. That said, he adds, “It’s a dangerous path for an editor to walk; looking primarily for signs to check if something is AI generated.” He isn’t worried about AI replacing writers though. “Radio didn’t kill books, television didn’t, broadband Internet didn’t, and AI won’t, but transparency between writers and editors is essential.”

Tackling the beast

Increasingly, people claim they’re okay with AI visuals if they’re labelled as such, but with writing, audiences are less accepting. This became abundantly clear when Nobel and Booker-winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, in the same week as the Granta controversy, announced on X that she used AI while writing. “Often I just ask the machine, ‘Darling, how could we develop this beautifully?’” More so than Nazir, who was awarded £2,500 as prize money, Tokarczuk’s career has enjoyed many spoils. One can argue that these were for the works of her own mind, not that of a large language model’s.

In the same week, Mia Ballard’s Shy Girl, a novel signed to publisher Hachette in the U.S., lost its contract when on investigation, it appeared to have been penned partially by AI. Ballard claims it was only edited by AI, and that her words are original, but when run through Pangram’s detection software, a whopping 78% appeared to be AI-generated.

This brings us to a new, complicated aspect. If a declaration of use isn’t acceptable, the only way to know, currently, is nascent detection software. But how often is it right? Nazir’s wasn’t the only Commonwealth Prize-winning story to be flagged for AI this year. Malta’s John Edward DeMicoli and India’s Sharon Aruparayil’s stories both “tested positive”. So, are all writers succumbing to it?

Booker Prize nominee Avni Doshi who speaks out against AI frequently, says, “I’ve been thinking about what we can do, what decisions each of us can make as we walk forward into this nightmare. How do we resist this new face of extraction? I think it lies in committing to our bodies, to the foibles, the imperfections — all the mess that makes us real. And committing to creative work that emerges from that. Our own and the work of others. I want to read a book that came out of a living body, a body that spent time, effort — a book that is made of ideas that have been wrestled with through that body.”

At what point does the circle begin to close in, and younger writers, more exposed to AI writing, begin inadvertently mimicking it, even while writing without it? One writer I know recently lamented that a signature component of her writing style, the em dash, had been so aggressively co-opted by ChatGPT that everyone presumed she was using it to write her pieces. It may very well be that writers themselves have to be more vigilant than their editors, perhaps even running their own original works through detection software before submitting. Does this mean further training the very beast they’re trying to avoid though? And how long then before AI is able to iron out its idiocies.

Cost of creativity

In tandem, it’s worth also asking what might become of adjacent industries. Will the value and legitimacy of writing retreats, creative writing courses, and programmes like the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop go up? Or will they become redundant, and eventually obsolete.

At the core is the worry of both thought and language becoming increasingly homogenised, as well as frighteningly nonsensical. One of the “tells” of ‘The Serpent in the Grove’, angry readers said, were metaphors that didn’t add up, like, “A story is a well. It eats sound until somebody throws a rope.” For now, though, and “until definite evidence comes to light”, Granta says the story will remain firmly online.

On a personal note, this writer doesn’t get it. Writing itself isn’t very rewarding. Lucrative prizes and six-figure deals are mostly myth, and publishers routinely lament less people reading each year. Unless you truly enjoy the process, it’s a painful and not exactly easy way to make a living. There are countless other ways to tell a story, including paying someone for it. One can only conclude then, and this is perhaps a silver lining too, that the perceived prestige of publication, still very much holds.

The writer’s new book, ‘Waterbaby’, will be out this year.