Thélyson Orélien, a 38-year-old Haitian-Canadian author, is at the center of a major controversy in French literature, with his debut novel, "C'était ça ou mourir" (It Was Either That or Die), accused of being written almost entirely by artificial intelligence. The novel, which tells the story of a teacher fleeing gang violence in Haiti and seeking refuge in Canada, has been a significant success, selling nearly 35,000 copies in five weeks and winning several awards, including the prestigious Prix du Roman Fnac. It has also been longlisted for other major prizes like the Goncourt, Renaudot, and Femina, and its foreign rights have been sold to over 20 countries.
The accusations surfaced from an anonymous X (formerly Twitter) account named "Balance ton Claude," which claimed to have used the AI detection tool Pangram, identified as a leading detector, to analyze passages of the book. The account stated that Pangram consistently showed results indicating the text was 100% AI-generated. Le Monde newspaper conducted its own tests, with software classifying over 95% of the novel as AI-generated, although it could not definitively prove machine authorship. Conversely, AFP's InVID-WeVerify tool suggested the passages were "very likely written by a human," and other AI detectors provided mixed results, highlighting the unreliability of such software, particularly for non-English texts.
Orélien vehemently denies the allegations, stating he has always loved creation and literature and would not use a machine. He views the accusations as a form of racist attack and is compiling a dossier with his publishers, Grasset in France and Editions du Boreal in Canada, to prove his authorship. Both publishers have come to his defense, describing the claims as "atrociously injurious" and emphasizing his exceptional life story and original work. Grasset also noted that Orélien began writing the novel in 2017, years before the widespread emergence of advanced AI tools like ChatGPT. Philippe Claudel, president of the Académie Goncourt, acknowledged the controversy and the potential need for a charter to distinguish human from AI-generated content, stating that the Goncourt committee would consider any indisputable evidence by their October 6th meeting.
The controversy has ignited a broader discussion about race, literary merit, and the future of authorship in the age of AI within the French literary establishment. While some, like Goncourt judge Pierre Assouline, expressed personal doubts about the novel's "too smooth" text, Claudel urged caution against prematurely condemning Orélien, highlighting the author's background as a Black, Haitian-Canadian, French-speaking individual, and suggesting that emotions might be running high in the debate.
