Do you want to read good writing, or do you want to touch someone's life?

The culture section of the Nikkei newspaper featured a special report titled 'The Flood of AI Novels'.

It seems it was revealed that among the winning and excellent entries for the Shinichi Hoshi Award, some were created using AI. In response, one of the selection committee members announced they would be stepping down from the next round.

The reason is simple: 'I no longer want to read writing produced by AI.'

This is likely not just a matter of 'disliking AI.' It is perhaps the discomfort of not knowing what, or whose writing, one is reading.

Ultimately, do you want to read good writing, or do you want to touch someone's life? These two things are similar but different.

Honestly, I find Shinichi Hoshi's short-shorts quite eerie (subjective). But they function as short stories, and they are works born from the human being that was Shinichi Hoshi. Perhaps that fact is what supports the meaning of the works.

By the way, some of Shinichi Hoshi's short-shorts feature themes close to what current generative AI is doing. In volume 16 of Doraemon, there is also a device that 'learns a massive amount of manga to create the ultimate manga.'

One could say that science fiction has caught up with reality, or that we have reached a stage where 'literature based on ideas' can be almost entirely reproduced. The prophecy has been fulfilled.

However, thinking about it that far, I've become unsure whether we are evaluating the work or evaluating the human. I felt that the selection committee member's discomfort likely lies here.

As a reader: The anxiety of not knowing who wrote it
As a judge: The system based on the premise of 'things written by humans' is collapsing

Perhaps the criteria for evaluating literature have implicitly been 'evaluating the person who wrote it' all along. The arrival of AI has changed that premise. It might be better to have an award where we evaluate works created by AI instead.