Olga Tokarczuk [EPA=Yonhap News Photo]

Olga Tokarczuk, a 64-year-old Polish writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018, has sparked controversy by stating that she uses AI chatbots to assist her writing. Some have even argued that the Nobel Prize in Literature should be revoked, claiming that she has entrusted her novels to AI.

According to Polish media outlets like TVP on the 21st (local time), Tokarczuk recently spoke at a conference in Poznan, Poland, stating that she uses the paid version of a top-tier AI chatbot and expressed her "enormous shock" upon seeing how it "amazingly broadens horizons and deepens thought."

Tokarczuk referred to the chatbot as "kochana," which translates to "darling" in Korean, and said, "I often give the machine an idea to analyze and ask, 'Darling, how can we refine this beautifully?'"

She added, "In literary fiction, this technology is an unbelievably great asset," but did not disclose whether she incorporates conversations with AI into her works.

Her ambiguous remarks quickly led to suspicions of ghostwriting by AI. One netizen wrote, "Now we just have to wait for the Nobel Prize for Best Prompt. Darling, what do you think?" Remigiusz Mróz, a Polish writer who frequently faces suspicions of AI use, sarcastically commented, "I'm still at the stage of asking ChatGPT if I can write the reply for them."

As the situation escalated, Tokarczuk clarified that she does not write with AI. In a statement released on the 19th, she said, "All my writings, including the novel to be published in Polish this autumn, were not aided by AI. The exception is its use for faster preliminary research."

She continued, "I use AI with the same principles as most people worldwide. Every time I use this tool, I additionally verify the information," adding, "It is the same method as reading books and searching through libraries and archives for decades."

In Britain, the winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Short Fiction was recently suspected of being written by AI. The publisher of the work in question stated, "It is possible that the judges awarded a prize to an AI-plagiarized work. We do not know yet, and perhaps we never will."

Commenting on this commotion, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel remarked, "The reason we remember great artists is that they created something new while also being in tune with the trends of their time," and opined, "The end of AI development may see a Nobel laureate who wrote with AI."