‘Land of Memories’ is a science fiction novel generated by Shang Yeng, a professor at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, using AI. The work is centred around a former neuroscientist seeking to recover her lost memories in the metaverse. It won the second prize at a national literary competition in China.
Shen Yang’s novel likely the first ever literary work of an AI to win an award. | Representative image: Pixabay
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- A science fiction novel written by AI has won a national literary award in China.
- ‘Land of Memories’ author Shen Yang created it from a 43,000-character draft generated within three hours using 66 prompts.
- Only one judge among a panel of six jury members was informed that the work was AI-generated, with the novel securing a second prize.
When the jury at a Chinese literary competition named a book among winners of the national science fiction award, most of the judges didn’t know it was written by artificial intelligence.
Shen Yang, a professor at the Tsinghua University of Beijing, turned to AI to generate the novel titled the ‘Land of Memories’ and ended up winning the second prize at the Jiangsu Youth Popular Science Science Fiction Competition in October 2023.
He composed the sci-fi story using a 43,000-character draft produced within three hours with 66 prompts. An excerpt from his novel, entirely generated by AI, reads:
“In the metaverse’s edge lies the ‘Land of Memories’, a forbidden realm where humans are barred. Solid illusions crafted by amnesiac humanoid robots and AI that had lost memories populate its domain.
“Any intruder, be it human or artificial, will have their memories drained away, forever trapped within its forbidden embrace.”
The narrative revolves around Li Xiao, a metaverse explorer and former neural engineer in the real world, as per local media reports. The protagonist loses all memories related to her family after an experiment goes wrong. Looking to recover her lost memories, she then turns to the legend of the Land of Memories.
The novel won a second prize at the literary competition, which means three of the total six judges voted in its favour.
Only one of them was told beforehand that it is generated by AI, with another who could actually tell the work from that of a human deciding not to vote for Yang’s novel due to a perceived lack of emotion.
“This is the first time AI writing has won a literary award in the history of literature and of AI,” the author said.
Yang added that he had asked the tool to write in Kafkaesque style, the distinctive manner of writing associated with Franz Kafka, the famous Bohemian novelist who illustrated terrifying situations in objective language.
Although most readers could not discern the text was AI-generated, with language taking a backseat in the science fiction genre—which primarily focuses on creativity—experts fear that overdependence on AI could irreversibly damage literary language in the future.
