, Columnist
The Novel That Turned ChatGPT Panic Into Art
An award-winning Japanese book was partially written by AI. All the worst bits of it.
Turning AI’s emptiness into art.
Photographer: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images
In Rie Qudan’s Sympathy Tower Tokyo, the protagonist turns to a chatbot dubbed “AI-built” to ask questions about the origin of new Japanese words borrowed from foreign languages.
She then gripes about its tendency to “mansplain things I hadn’t actually asked about” to fuel engagement. The AI tool has become “so used to stealing the words of others without repercussion that he felt no shame,” she notes.