The British literary magazine Granta will stop publishing the stories of Commonwealth Short Story Prize winners after a dispute over the possible use of AI in one of the texts, The Guardian writes.

Granta stated that it will no longer take part in «external publishing partnerships» where the magazine has no editorial control.

The trigger was the selection of the prize's 2026 regional winners, which caused an uproar over suspicions that one or more stories could have been at least partly generated by AI. The authors «firmly rejected» the accusations.

Granta will nonetheless keep the shortlisted stories on its site «in the public interest».

The dispute flared up around the story The Serpent in the Grove by Jamir Nazir — the winner in the Caribbean region. Some readers and experts said the text contained signs of generative AI, including characteristic language constructions and repeating patterns.

Nazir wrote to the Observer that he works exclusively on an Android smartphone. According to him, due to chronic health problems he dictates the text and then makes minimal edits from the keyboard.

Publisher and philanthropist Sigrid Rausing suggested that the judges may have awarded a «case of AI plagiarism», but stressed: this is «not yet known».

Commonwealth Foundation CEO Razmi Farook said that all the shortlisted authors personally confirmed the absence of AI content, and after additional consultations the foundation acknowledged this.

The overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize receives £5,000, and the regional laureates £2,500 each. According to the Sigrid Rausing Trust website, the foundation allocated £30,000 to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014-2016. The prize's organizers did not respond to The Guardian's request.

Recall that in May the organizers of the «Oscar» film awards banned AI-generated actors and scripts.

Source: ForkLog