First AI-authored Arabic novel explores new literary frontier

He told Al Majalla that he initially intended to present this novel to university sociology students in the form of a comparative study.

The experiment would divide students into two cohorts, one that would know that the novel was authored with the help of AI, and another that would not, to explore any differences in reactions to the writing depending on the knowledge of how it was put together.

Instead, his publisher persuaded him to print the novel.

 "AI is capable of authoring a full novel or short passages of a novel. It can also add some details to certain scenes. Its uses are not confined to a particular purpose," he said.

"The aim behind 'A Treason in Morocco' was to experiment, learn, and present this new experience to the public."

Lutfi believes AI is already able to produce entire literary works that offer strong narrative techniques and intriguing plots and fulfil the requirements for a successful and exciting novel. This means AI will expand the horizons for creating more valuable works in the future, according to the writer.

"Of course, I could have intervened much further in authoring the novel to make it livelier and more meaningful. However, I opted for presenting the raw machine-generated text as is," he explained.

Simple language

Language is what distinguishes literary authors and helps them mould their proper writing style. This gives rise to yet another dilemma regarding AI authorship: what style of writing does AI use? Could it be a combination of the styles of great literary authors whose works have been fed into its database?

"AI uses a simplified and basic Arabic language in its writing, one that lacks any stylistic techniques that would distinguish it. It almost reads like a translation from English to Arabic."

"Any AI-authored literary work with polished, elegant, and well-constructed language should be assumed to have been edited by a human author. Thus far, no AI tool is capable of crafting well-written literary productions on its own," he said.

Naysayers

Humans are often resistant to change and apprehensive of new trends.

This is especially true in literature, which is the amalgam of countless human experiences, events, and feelings, transcending age and place. A novel written several centuries ago may very well feel relevant today. Can AI do that, Al Majalla asked?

"People will reject any AI-assisted productions in creative fields. They might accept it in medicine, natural sciences, and similar fields. But it would be difficult for humans to accept that AI narrates their suffering and feelings. I doubt it can, at the moment, anyway," he said.

Lutfi doubts AI will achieve great leaps in the writing of Arabic novels in the foreseeable future, as Arabic input in most AI software is limited to basic language and media content.

"This might change in the future, though," he said "Eventually, the core of any novel will always be its human value."

Read more: ChatGPT: Writing a poem doesn't make one a poet

In that respect, Lutfi said: "There have been many literary works catering to the consumerist culture in the Arab world, and these works were produced by human minds."

"AI-assisted literary productions might be consumerist in nature at the moment, but they still provide a new offering that is worth experiencing, if only to formulate a valid opinion about it," he explained.

"The naysayers of "A Treason in Morocco" did not oppose the novel itself, but rather the concept of an AI-authored novel," Lutfi said.

Many of the books exhibited in the latest edition of the Cairo Book Fair might have been secretly authored by AI, but weren't attacked because this AI assistance was not announced publicly."

Lufti is not the only literary AI pioneer.

A 24-hour bookshop blazes the trail

Robin Sloan channelled some of the themes relating to the conflict between new technology and traditional creativity in his acclaimed book "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore".

The tale of traditional researchers and digital experts solving a mystery together made it on The New York Times' Editors' Choice list for the year it was published, 2012.

Six years later, Sloan sat with The New York Times for an interview about a new approach he was taking to writing: using AI-assisted authorship.

Showcasing his methods, Sloan typed into his AI interface: "The bison are gathered around the canyon," then hit tab. His software, which he had trained on a large pool of text extracted from classical novels by John Steinbeck, Joan Didion, and others, offered the following addition: "by the bare sky" resulting in the more decorative sentence: "The bison are gathered around the canyon by the bare sky."

Robin was impressed.

"That's kind of fantastic," he told the Times.

"Would I have written 'bare sky' by myself? Maybe, maybe not."

The machine mind and a new literary frontier

With the launch of ChatGPT after years of training and data feeding, people are becoming increasingly aware of the machine's capability to simulate our ways of thinking.

People can now converse with this gigantic machine mind, and even command it to perform functions.

This is a new frontier in humanity's experience with machines and is sparking real fears over the fate of literature, as a potential challenge to our ability to preserve its human authenticity and spontaneity, which can only stem from pure human feelings – at least so far.

It is still unclear to what extent the machine can produce emotions similar to those of human beings, particularly when writing.

It is also unclear how far AI creativity goes while producing literary sentences, and whether it is capable of offering that human value that constitutes the core of literature.   

With pioneering authors like Sloan and Lufti already collaborating with AI, we are sure to find out more about its impact soon enough.