Caine Prize Winner Simbarashe Kundizeza Denies AI Wrote His 6 October Story
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Oct 14
Caine Prize Winner Simbarashe Kundizeza Denies AI Wrote His 6 October Story
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Oct 14
Summary
Simbarashe Kundizeza said “The Blue Fighter” was “entirely my own work,” rejecting claims that generative AI wrote the story that won the Caine Prize on 6 October.
The allegation came 5 days later in a Atlantic article by Vauhini Vara, who said Pangram software judged the story almost completely AI-generated and cited stylistic patterns she associated with machine-written prose.
The Caine Prize said it is reviewing the claim but stressed a “human-centred approach,” while chair Ellah Wakatama warned against treating AI-detection tools as a final arbiter and said Black writers should not become a testing ground.
Kundizeza also pushed back on Vara’s comparison with a 2021 story, saying writers can change style and improve over 5 years, while Vara acknowledged there is still relatively little third-party research on detector accuracy.
The dispute lands amid wider scrutiny of AI in literature after similar accusations hit other prize-recognized writers, including Jamir Nazir in July and Thélyson Orélien last month.