"AI Drives Entry Surge, Doubling Submission Volumes and Ballooning Screening Costs... Japan's Rookie Literary Awards at Risk"

1,012 Entries for Hayakawa SF Contest in Japan
"Estimated 2 to 3 Out of Every 10 Involve Generative AI"
Screening Costs in the Tens of Millions of Won... "Concerns Over Decline in Rookie Awards"

Japanese publishers are reportedly struggling with soaring screening costs as a flood of novels suspected of involving artificial intelligence (AI) pour into rookie literary award competitions.

Photo to aid understanding of the article. Pixabay

On August 17, Yonhap News cited the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) in reporting that "novels written with AI are flooding Japanese literary award contests, causing a surge in judging costs and threatening the very existence of rookie literary prizes."

Hayakawa Publishing received 1,012 entries for the 14th Hayakawa SF Contest, which closed at the end of March. Considering that in previous years the number of submissions hovered around 400, this figure has more than doubled. While there is no method to definitively confirm actual AI usage in these submissions, a publishing company official estimated that at least two to three out of every ten entries may have been generated with AI assistance.

One characteristic of AI-generated writing is the appearance of unnecessary spacing between paragraphs. In works suspected to have been created with AI, there are line breaks between paragraphs in the early sections; however, as the story progresses, the writing style suddenly becomes smoother and those spaces disappear.

Another publisher, Takarajimasha, saw 731 entries for its "Kono Mystery ga Sugoi!" contest, a 60% increase from the previous year. Kadokawa's light novel competition, the Dengeki Novel Prize, received 5,088 entries, up 40%, while Shinchosha's Shincho Newcomer Award attracted 3,518 submissions—a 30% increase. Thus, the number of contest entries rose regardless of genre.

The publishing industry interprets this as AI having lowered the barriers to amateur creative writing. Even without a long period of practice, entrants can now submit manuscripts of a certain quality, which has led to more people vying for literary prizes. In May, the Literary Flea Market event, where creators sell their own novels, drew a record 18,000 visitors in Tokyo.

Hayakawa SF Contest. Official Website

Rookie literary awards are considered a lifeline for the industry, serving as a channel for publishers to discover new talent who may become future sources of revenue. Typically, critics, debut authors, and editors oversee the first to third rounds of judging, while a renowned author selects the final prizewinner. Outsourcing the initial screening to external experts costs several thousand yen per work, meaning that surges in submissions can add hundreds of thousands to millions of yen (tens of millions of won) in additional annual expenses. Nikkei pointed out, "As long as this structure persists, there is a pessimistic outlook that rookie literary awards themselves may decrease in number."

There have also been cases where works created with AI won major literary prizes. In January 2024, novelist Rie Kudan won the 170th Akutagawa Prize with "Tokyo Sympathy Tower" and stated in a press conference that about 5% of the novel's sentences were generated directly by ChatGPT. Furthermore, in her short story "Shadow Rain," published in the magazine "Kokoku" in March 2023, she reversed the ratio, with 95% written by AI and only 5% by the author, completing the manuscript in just two weeks.

The U.S. publishing industry has already experienced similar issues. Science fiction magazine Clarkesworld, for instance, suspended submissions indefinitely in 2023, for the first time in its 17-year history. At the time, its editor, Neil Clarke, reported, "By the time we closed submissions, we had received 700 valid entries and 500 suspected machine-written submissions. Because AI detection tools are inaccurate and charging submission fees would unfairly exclude legitimate writers, there is no viable solution other than a shutdown."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.