Uproar in France over award-winning author accused of using AI

The French book scene is in uproar after a Canadian-Haitian author billed as a sensation was accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to write his first novel. Thélyson Orélien, 38, has just been awarded the Prix du Roman Fnac - the first of the literary season's prizes - for C'était ça ou mourir (It was either that or die). He is also a finalist for the most prestigious annual French language awards, the Goncourt and the Renaudot, set to be issued soon. But on Tuesday a little-known group called Balance ton Claude (Denounce your Claude, in reference to Anthropic's AI assistant) claimed the book was almost totally written by AI - a charge the author denied. We tested several passages, from different bits of the manuscript, to come up with the identical result: 100 percent AI, the group said on X.