Literary Magazine Faces Questions Over Possible AI Use in Prize Story

The British literary magazine Granta published a regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize that some readers suspect was generated by AI. The story, titled "The Serpent in the Grove" by Jamir Nazir, contains repeated sentence structures and mixed metaphors that some observers associate with large language model output.

Commonwealth Foundation director-general Razmi Farook said all shortlisted writers had personally stated that no AI was used to help draft their stories. Farook added that the organization must operate on the principle of trust until a reliable detection tool for unpublished fiction becomes available.

" Rausing noted that the judges may have awarded a prize to an instance of AI plagiarism, though the organization does not yet know for certain.

Jared Hosein, a previous Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner, confirmed that Nazir is a real person and shared recent messages exchanged with Nazir about the suspicions. Nazir published a poetry collection in 2018. Nazir did not respond to The Verge's request for comment.

In March, Hachette pulled publication of Mia Ballard's horror novel Shy Girl after the author was accused of using AI. Ballard denied the accusation and blamed a for-hire editor. Polish author Olga Tokarczuk stated she uses AI for idea generation and fact-checking but does not use it to write her books.

Tokarczuk said she independently verifies any information obtained from AI tools. She added that she feels grief over the departure of traditional literature written in isolation over months.