AI Novel Creation Project Reports on Submission to Nikkei's "Seiichi Hoshi Award"

The "Whimsical Artificial Intelligence Project: I Am a Writer" is a project team aiming to create novels using artificial intelligence (AI). They recently submitted an AI-generated work to the Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Award, a literary prize whose results were just announced. On March 21, they held an "Application Report Meeting" at Dentsu Inc. Hall in Shiodome, Tokyo, where project members explained the current status and discussed future prospects.

 

Prior to the report, Professor Hitoshi Matsubara of the Public University Future University Hakodate, who serves as the project representative, explained the purpose and objectives of this research. Launched in September 2012, the project aims to have computers write "short-short" stories, a genre mastered by the late author Shinichi Hoshi.

Researchers from various universities participated, analyzing patterns and creative methods found in Hoshino's works with the copyright holder's consent. Additionally, they developed a text generation program—an area traditionally considered difficult for computers—to pursue the creation of "Hoshino-like stories" by AI. The Nikkei "Shinichi Hoshi Award," to which they submitted entries, was newly established in 2013 as a literary prize testing scientific creativity. Two works from the team were submitted.

Regarding the project's origins, Matsubara stated, "We've seen significant achievements in fields like shogi and Go, where 'AI solves difficult problems.' Now we want to challenge the field of 'AI creating something new.' We want to demonstrate that computers can handle sensibility too." He further outlined the vision: "Currently, humans provide the story framework, and AI converts it into text. The ultimate goal is for AI to create everything itself and then select the best works from its own creations."

Following this, team members presented their research findings. Assistant Professor Murai from Tokyo Institute of Technology presented research on computers reading and analyzing Hoshino's works to understand the stories. Professor Sato from Nagoya University explained the computer text generation system used in the submitted works for this contest.

Additionally, another team submitted AI-generated works to this year's Nikkei "Hoshi Shinichi Award." This team, the "Werewolf Intelligence Project," researches AI applications in communication games. As part of this research, they submitted two works. On the day, Associate Professor Fujio Toriumi of the University of Tokyo, who leads the team, explained their submission: the AI created the story, and humans wrote the text.

At the end of the report session, Toshiji Hase, a Japan SF Grand Prize-winning author, took the stage. Commenting on the four works submitted by both teams, he stated, "I was surprised to see such well-written prose and proper novels. Going forward, the challenge will be whether they can adequately handle character development and provide sufficient scene-by-scene descriptions."

Some of the four works passed the first round of judging, and the teams aim to win literary awards in the future. Mr. Matsubara concluded the session, saying, "As novels, there's still much work to be done. I hope we can bring you more wonderful reports in the future."