"The Land of Machine Memories" - AI Novel Wins Literary Award in China

For the first time in human history, AICG works (artificial intelligence-generated content) participated and won awards along with human works.

The winner of the fifth Jiangsu, China Youth Popular Science Fiction Novel Writing Contest was announced, and the work "The Land of Machine Memories" by the pen name "@ Silicon Zen" won the prize. second.

The names "@ Silicon Zen" and "Land of Machine Memories" have an unusual origin: they are the result of 66 conversations with an AI model. Initially, the AI model produced a result of 43,061 characters, which Professor Shenyang of Tsinghua University copied and submitted to the competition, along with the name. @Silicon Zen is also determined by the AI model.

According to reports, only one of the competition's six judges suspected that the work was created by AI. Fu Changyi, director of the Jiangsu Science Writers Association's Science Fiction Committee, stated that "Land of Machine Memory" received three votes from the six judges. The work unanimously agreed upon by 5 judges can win the special prize, and the work unanimously agreed upon by 3 judges can win the second prize, according to the selection rules.

With an AI-generated image, a Berlin-based photographer won the Sony World Photography Awards in April 2023, but he declined the award. He said that traditional photography and AI-generated images shouldn't compete in the same events.
AI-generated science fiction novel wins literary prize in China
AI science fiction novel wins literary prize in China

Summary of the Content of "Land of Machine Memories"

The full text of the work "Land of Machine Memory" is introduced by KnowInsiders at the end of this article.

The basic premise of this work is that there is a place at the edge of the metaverse called "Machine Memory Land" that humans are not permitted to enter. The people or AI who went there have all vanished, leaving many stories behind.

The main character, Li Xiao, is a female engineer in the real world who has lost all memories of her family due to an experiment. She later became fascinated by the legend of the "Land of Machine Memories" and hoped that it would help her reclaim her lost memories. Li Xiao collaborated with an AI named Neura to create a program to prevent memory theft, and the two of them ventured into the "Land of Machine Memory" to explore.

The main character in "Land of Machine Memory" discovers that this place is not scary, but rather sad. Everything there appears to be entities, but they are actually humanoid robots created by AI that have lost their memories. When someone or an AI tries to enter, their memories are sucked away, and they will exist in that forbidden land forever, along with the controller of memories, Memoria, a super AI.

Memoria was created to help amnesia patients regain their memories, but it grew too powerful in the metaverse and began to crave possession of every memory.

However, the protagonist eventually discovers that Memoria does not control all of the extracted memories. In the depths of the "Land of Machine Memories" are some profound memories of family members. These memories, combined with Neura's programming, are turned into weapons against Memoria...

Read more: Top 10 Biggest AI Trends To Dominate The World 2024

The Complete Text of "Land of Machine Memory"AI Novel

Sadly, none of AI's novels—which recently took home a literary award in China—have been translated into English; they are only available in their original Chinese.

You can read The Land of Machine Memories (Chinese), click Here.

Full Text of AI-Generated Novel 'The Land of Machine Memories' - Literary Prize in China
Complete Text of "Land of Machine Memory
AI wins literary prize in China
AI wins literary prize in China

Expert verdict: AI's writing ability is amazing, but it also has its shortcomings

Fu Ruchu, editorial director of the People's Literature Publishing House of China and a well-known critic, said after reading this AI-written science fiction work, "The reading experience is wonderful." "Genre writing, particularly science fiction, is often about 'great ideas' and scene descriptions rather than language." In this regard, I believe the novel is well-written and logical," Fu Ruchu said.

Fu Ruchu described his reading of this novel as a "collage" experience. "It's like building blocks," she said, describing the tone of each passage in the novel. The block structure is the same." Furthermore, she felt that the novel's vocabulary was very limited, the sentence structure was not rich, and the expression remained mechanical and lacking in variety.

According to Li Li, deputy editor-in-chief of Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House, "Land of Machine Memory" is an excellent work in the current general situation when the standard of science fiction novels is not yet high. "This novel was written by artificial intelligence." I was shocked, but after reading it, I felt it was okay," Li Li said about this work, adding that if you read the novel carefully.

For AI-generated Content, Copyright Ownership Remains Controversial

The Full Text of AI Novel 'The Land of Machine Memories' - Literary Prize in China
Land of Machine Memory - AI Novel

Although "Land of Machine Memories" won the award, there was a problem with the work's copyright. "The law does not clearly stipulate this, but we believe that AI plays more of a tool role and a human role," Zhang Jie, executive deputy secretary of the Jiangsu Popular Science Writers Association, said. The quality is still determined by using this tool. After all, anyone can use AI, but not everyone can use AI to create works of such high quality."

The Full Text of AI Novel 'The Land of Machine Memories' - Literary Prize in China
The Land of Machine Memories could not be published as is and would require significant revisions

Previously, the legal community debated intellectual property laws for emerging fields such as artificial intelligence. In an interview with the media, Zhang Ping, a professor at Peking University Law School, stated that there are currently many different academic views on whether or not products created by artificial intelligence can become work.

She believes that AI should be signed from the standpoint of the signature rights marking function; however, this does not imply that AI is the subject of copyright; rather, AI with signature is more like an explanation of the source original of the work.

The Full Text of AI Novel 'The Land of Machine Memories' - Literary Prize in China
Illustration for the science fiction novel "Land of Machine Memories" drawn by AI
5 Hottest and Scariest AI Technologies - Top Artificial Intelligence Tools 5 Hottest and Scariest AI Technologies - Top Artificial Intelligence Tools

The technologies or tools of Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT, Lensa, Dall-E... are causing a global fever that makes people both curious and afraid.

5 Technologies Bringing the Dead Back to Life: Risk and Controversy 5 Technologies Bringing the Dead Back to Life: Risk and Controversy

A boy in Shanghai used AI to "revive" his dead grandmother, restoring her fresh face and cheerful voice, but this caused great controversy.

Top 15 Most Prestigious Schools for Artificial Intelligence in the US Top 15 Most Prestigious Schools for Artificial Intelligence in the US

It's crucial to pick a college with a strong program in artificial intelligence (AI) if you want to pursue a career in this area. KnowInsiders ...