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Novelist Scoops Literary Prize—Then Reveals She Used ChatGPT

One of the judges praised her winning book as being “flawless.”

At an award ceremony for one of Japan ’s most prestigious literary prizes on Wednesday night, author Rie Kudan revealed her winning novel, The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy, was written with the help of an unusual ghostwriter: ChatGPT. Kudan said that around five percent of her book “quoted verbatim the sentences generated by AI,” potentially embarrassing the judging committee who had heaped praise on the writing. It follows the story of Sara Makina, an architect who builds a tower in a Tokyo park designed to offer a place where criminals are rehabilitated and explores her discomfort with society’s tolerance towards those who break the law.

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