New French literary prize is open only to books written with AI

The Prix Pascal, which Le Figaro calls the first literary prize to reward a book written with artificial intelligence, is open only to work made with AI. Its rules require each entrant to declare on their honour that the work was produced with AI assistance, which Le Figaro notes is the reverse of other prizes.

Entries are unpublished manuscripts in French, 10,000 to 50,000 words according to Le Figaro, judged anonymously. Each comes with a "seed", the prompt behind the book, and a technical file naming the language model used and how the text was generated. The organisers say any major model is accepted, naming ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral and LLaMA, and that the tool is information for the jury, not a reason to reject an entry. Anyone in the French-speaking world can enter, with no publisher or writing track record needed.

The organisers' site says the submission portal opened on 20 October; Le Figaro, writing the day before, gave 2 November. Entries close at the end of November, ten finalists will be named, and the winner will be announced in early December. A five-member jury of writers, critics, editors, philosophers and journalists is due to be named in early November. Livres Hebdo reports that Jacques Attali is expected to chair it and that CNRS research director Alexandre Gefen will sit on it. The winner receives a cash award, amount not yet set, and the prize says it will work to get the manuscript published.

The prize arrives while other awards fight over AI the other way. The Goncourt pulled Thélyson Orélien's novel over AI and plagiarism claims, and Orélien denies using AI. The Caine Prize winner denies AI use after a detector flagged the story.

What it means for you: unless you write in French, you cannot enter. The signal is disclosure: one prize now wants the model and prompt in writing, while others are asking whether AI was used at all. Either way, a record of how a book was made is becoming part of the book.