AI-Written Sci-Fi Novel Wins Literary Award for the First Time in History!
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Recently, a sci-fi novel titled 'Land of Machine Memories,' entirely written by AI, won the second prize in the 5th Jiangsu Youth Science Fiction and Popular Science Writing Competition. This marks a historic first in both literary and AI history.
The illustration in the draft of 'Land of Machine Memories' was also created by Shen Yang using an AI platform.
On the afternoon of October 18, a reporter contacted Fu Changyi, director of the Science Fiction Committee of the Jiangsu Popular Science Writers Association. Fu stated that, to his knowledge, this is the first time an AI-created sci-fi work has participated in and won a competition. The competition was organized by the Jiangsu Popular Science Writers Association and the Jiangsu Science Communication Center, with the Science Fiction Committee of the association responsible for its execution. It was open to submissions nationwide.
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. According to the competition guidelines, entries were divided into two categories: popular science articles and sci-fi works. There were no restrictions on AI-generated submissions, but participants had to be 'youth aged 14–45 with an interest in sci-fi and popular science writing.' Sci-fi works were required to be at least 5,000 words long. Fu Changyi mentioned that after learning Shen Yang was experimenting with AI to write sci-fi, he encouraged him to participate.
'If you want to write a short sci-fi story involving the metaverse and humanoid robots, AI can generate an innovative outline that surprises you within the first three sentences—something never seen in existing materials,' Shen Yang described his creative request to the AI platform.
Shen Yang explained that it took him about three hours, intermittently, to create 'Land of Machine Memories' using the AI platform. During this time, he interacted with the AI 66 times, producing over 40,000 words of draft material, from which he finalized a 5,900-word story. The protagonist, Li Xiao, is a metaverse explorer who was once a neural engineer in the real world but lost all memories of her family in an experiment. She becomes deeply interested in the legend of the 'Land of Machine Memories,' hoping to recover her lost memories.
The competition received nearly 200 submissions, with 6 grand prizes, 14 first prizes, 18 second prizes, 27 third prizes, and 25 honorable mentions awarded, along with 16 organizational excellence awards. Notably, in the winners' list announced on October 16, the author of 'Land of Machine Memories' was listed as '@Silicon Zen,' with 'Tsinghua University' as the affiliated institution. This was the only winning entry with an '@' symbol in the author information.
Before the judging, Fu Changyi did not explicitly inform the judges that 'Land of Machine Memories' was AI-generated, as he wanted to 'see how the judges would evaluate it.' He revealed that 3 out of 6 judges voted for the story. According to the competition rules, works approved by 5 judges could win the grand prize, while those with 3 votes would receive the second prize.
Xiao Xinghan, a sci-fi writer and deputy director of the Chongqing Popular Science Writers Association, was one of the judges. He did not vote for 'Land of Machine Memories,' stating, 'Because I recognized it was written by AI.' He has been experimenting with AI models recently and has developed a sense for AI-generated writing styles.
Xiao Xinghan noted that this was his first encounter with an AI-created sci-fi work. As a judge, he did not recommend it not only because he identified it as AI-generated but also because he felt 'it wasn’t good enough.' He pointed out that the biggest issue with current AI-generated fiction is the lack of emotional depth.
Shenyang also acknowledged that 'Land of Machine Memories' has its shortcomings. Fu Changyi commented that while the story had a strong beginning, its middle section was poorly developed. 'There's still a clear difference between content generated through AI training and human writing,' he noted. Although the work won an award, it doesn't yet meet publication standards and would require further revisions.
Regarding this AI-created award-winning work, Xiao Xinghan suggested it could either be a minor ripple soon forgotten in history's flow, or the first cry that triggers an avalanche - marking the beginning of AI literature's dominance and 'posing a strong challenge to writers' livelihoods.'
When asked whether future competitions might accept more AI works, Fu Changyi indicated that next year might see some AI entries allowed, but with screening requirements. While submissions would need to identify AI-generated content initially, judges wouldn't be informed which works were AI-created during evaluation.