The publisher Boréal announced on Wednesday that it was ending its collaboration with Thélyson Orélien who, according to the Canadian publishing house, used artificial intelligence to write his novel “It Was That or Die” contrary to what he claimed.
“New elements, confirmed over the last few days, indicate that artificial intelligence was used in the writing process of “It Was That or Die”, even though the author had assured us, on several occasions, that he had never used it for the creation of his novel,” indicated in a press release the publisher who “will not reprint the novel and will not publish other books” by the author.
This announcement comes after the publisher announced a week ago that it supported the author, claiming to have no evidence to establish with certainty the use of AI.
AI tag traces in documents
Faced with doubts and while Thélyson Orélien “announced that he would not provide any other elements”, the publisher indicated that he had “ordered an in-depth external analysis” of “all the working versions of the novel”. “Results obtained this week revealed traces of AI tags in the metadata of some documents,” he continues.
“We still do not know to what extent AI was used in the creation of “It Was That or Die”, and we will probably never have a definitive answer in this regard” but “for us, the fundamental question is that of trust between authors and publishers”, said the publishing house.
Triggered by the accusations of the X account “Balance ton Claude”, which claimed to have identified a massive use of AI in the novel, the affair shook the world of French-speaking publishing and fueled for weeks questions about the future of the writing profession.
