A new French literary prize is inviting writers to submit fiction co-written with artificial intelligence, with the winning manuscript set to receive publication and a financial award.
The rules accept major language models including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral and LLaMA. The manuscript must be submitted anonymously, while the technical dossier is reserved for the organizers and jury.
The prize is named for Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century French mathematician, philosopher and writer who developed the Pascaline mechanical calculator. Its organizers present the award as a literary test of human-machine collaboration rather than a technology competition. They also require entries to be useful, raise an alarm or offer an original response to an ecological, social or ethical challenge facing humanity.
Applications close on Nov. Ten finalists are due to be selected at the same time, with the winner to be announced at a ceremony in early December. The six-member jury will include writers, critics, publishers, philosophers or journalists, and its membership is expected to be announced in early November. The rules say the jury will judge the aesthetic, narrative and stylistic quality of the work independently.
The launch comes amid disputes over suspected or alleged AI use in literary competitions, including a controversy surrounding novelist Thélyson Orélien, whose work was removed from consideration for the Goncourt after questions about AI use. The new prize makes that disputed practice its explicit subject, requiring entrants to disclose how their text was produced rather than treating AI assistance as grounds for exclusion.