Key facts
- Simbarashe Kundizeza denies using AI for his Caine Prize-winning story, "The Blue Fighter."
- The Atlantic reported AI-detection software Pangram flagged the story as almost entirely AI-generated.
- Kundizeza stated he wrote the story and has a documented history of its inspiration and development.
- Caine Prize chair Ellah Wakatama called for a full investigation before accusations taint the prize and winner.
- Concerns have been raised that AI allegations disproportionately target Black and African writers.
- The Caine Prize will conduct an internal investigation, requesting documentation from Kundizeza.
Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied allegations that he used artificial intelligence to write his short story, "The Blue Fighter," which won the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing. The accusation emerged a week after he received the £10,000 award, following an article in The Atlantic that claimed AI-detection software Pangram indicated the story was entirely AI-generated.
Kundizeza took to X (formerly Twitter) to state, "For the avoidance of doubt, I wrote The Blue Fighter," asserting he has a "concrete, documented history" of the story's inspiration and development. He explained that the story was inspired by a poem about fish tanks and woven with fictionalized details from his own life around 2002, when Zimbabwe's economic troubles began, touching on his father's career change.
The allegations have caused a stir on social media, with Caine Prize chair Ellah Wakatama expressing shock that The Atlantic published the claims before a full investigation. Wakatama told the BBC that the magazine should have conducted "real human investigation" alongside the AI assessment to avoid "tainting the prize and tainting this winner." She added that the Caine Prize would conduct its own internal investigation, requesting documentation from Kundizeza.
This controversy follows similar rows over other literary prizes, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and allegations against an author shortlisted for France's Goncourt prize. Some African writers, like Nigerian publisher Modupe Daramola, have suggested that such accusations disproportionately target Black and African writers, questioning the definitive nature of AI-powered detection tools like Pangram.
Vauhini Vara, the author of The Atlantic article, acknowledged that AI detection tools are not 100% accurate but stated Pangram's assessments are rarely wrong. She noted stylistic elements in "The Blue Fighter," such as sentence constructions and metaphors, that are common in AI-generated texts, and pointed out a tonal difference compared to an earlier story by Kundizeza.