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Clay Banks \/ Unsplash<\/p>\n
Connections between writers and their readers are built on trust.<\/p>\n
Some of the stories were published in anthologies, while the top 10 were also reprinted in The Telegram.<\/p>\n
It was always exciting when the entries started arriving. Some were heartfelt but amateurish attempts at storytelling; others revealed burgeoning talent and still more were works by polished writers able to create believable worlds in 1,200 words.<\/p>\n
It was a thrill, as an editor, to get first look at these works and to help launch some of them into the world. I imagined all these writers working away in front of keyboards, deep in concentration; the eureka moments when perfect words and phrases made themselves known.<\/p>\n
And it was satisfying to hear enthusiastic feedback from readers once the anthologies were published, knowing we had helped introduce them to the writers, possibly even sparking enduring relationships as the authors\u2019 craft and the audience\u2019s appreciation developed and flourished.<\/p>\n
Because that\u2019s the thing about writers and readers \u2014 and editors, too \u2014 it\u2019s a relationship. It can be deep and abiding or short-lived and fractious, but it is certainly a human connection \u2014 a meeting of minds.<\/p>\n
In accepting the 2016 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Margaret Atwood made this observation about the relationship between writer and reader:<\/p>\n
\u201cA book is a voice in your ear; the message is \u2014 while you are reading it \u2014 is for you alone. Reading a book is surely the most intimate experience we can have of the inside of another human being\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such a relationship is built on trust, on confidence \u2014 in the sense of something being confided. The author entrusts the reader with their story in the hope that the reader will reflect upon it and perhaps it will speak some truth to them \u2014 a truth that has been revealed between them.<\/p>\n
All my life I have had intimate relationships with authors through their books. True, some of the connections did not last \u2014 we were acquainted, but perhaps incompatible in some way. But others represented lifelong companionship, with beloved authors\u2019 works revealing different facets of themselves each time I revisit them.<\/p>\n
Which is why the notion of artificial intelligence intruding on the writing process is so disturbing.<\/p>\n
In May, the literary world reeled from the latest AI scandal when officials involved with the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and editors with Granta, the literary journal that publishes the winning entries, revealed that artificial intelligence might have been used in one story\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may be that the judges have now awarded a prize to an instance of AI plagiarism \u2014 we don\u2019t yet know, and perhaps we never will know,\u201d Sigrid Rausing, Granta\u2019s publisher, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The story in question, The Serpent in the Grove, is attributed to Jamir Nazir, said to be \u201ca Trinidadian writer of East Indian heritage whose work explores the cultural intersections of the Caribbean and the Indian diaspora.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did the story spring from Nazir\u2019s imagination or was an AI tool used? The fact that no one seems certain is troubling, indeed.<\/p>\n
Commonwealth Foundation\u2019s director general, Razmi Farook, was quoted in The Guardian on May 16 as saying, \u201cUntil a sufficient tool or process to reliably detect the use of AI emerges that can also grapple with the challenges pertaining to working with unpublished fiction, the foundation and the Commonwealth short story prize must operate on the principle of trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this and other AI controversies threaten to sever that bond of trust between writer and reader. If the author is not who they say they are, if their work does not spring from human experience and creativity, then how can there be any authentic relationship?<\/p>\n
Writer and editor Erica Wagner homed in on this dilemma in The Observer on May 24:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I entered a section of Nazir\u2019s story into Pangram, the AI detection program that the Society of Authors views as most reliable, the results were (seemingly) clear: 100 per cent AI. But remember, we are in mirror-world: the AI that detects the AI is trained on human writing, so, really, where are we? In the dark. The serpent in the grove indeed. Doubt has entered now, and doubt will not recede.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\tThe Wrap<\/p>\n
Weekday Evenings<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s must-read stories and a roundup of the day\u2019s headlines, delivered every evening.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tSign up for The Wrap<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t Similarly, Julian Novitz, an academic and author who had his own story shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014, wrote about the dilemma in The Conversation on May 21:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Serpent in the Grove may yet prove to be a parody or a warning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As a reader, I\u2019m rooting for parody, but it sure feels like a warning: a harbinger of more inauthentic experiences to come.<\/p>\n Pam Frampton lives in St. John\u2019s. <\/p>\n pamelajframpton@gmail.com<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Pam Frampton Pam Frampton is a columnist for the Free Press. She has worked in print media since 1990 and has been offering up her opinions for more than 20 years. Read more about Pam<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pam\u2019s columns are built on facts, but offer her personal views through arguments and analysis. Every column Pam produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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