AI Writing Detectors: Can They Really Tell a Novel Was Written by AI?

A novel by Thélyson Orélien was up for France's Goncourt prize until an AI check raised suspicions. We look at how reliable AI writing detectors really are.

Show Notes

AI-generated: both hosts are AI voices (Google NotebookLM), and the conversation is based on the sources listed below.

In this episode we unpack the controversy around Haitian-Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien, whose bestselling novel was in the running for France's prestigious Goncourt prize until someone ran it through an AI detector. The author denies using AI but admits plagiarism mistakes, and the novel was dropped from the Goncourt list. We use the case to ask a bigger question: can scientists and software reliably tell whether a book was written by AI?

AI detection tools are increasingly used by publishers, literary juries, schools and newsrooms to make judgments about authorship. If those tools are unreliable, writers' reputations and careers can hinge on a score nobody fully understands. Whether machine-written text can be spotted with confidence matters for literature, education and trust in what we read.

• How an AI check turned a French literary prize race into a scandal
• Thélyson Orélien denies AI use while admitting plagiarism mistakes
• How reliable AI writing detectors actually are
• Why separating AI use from plagiarism is harder than it sounds
• What the case means for publishers, prize juries and authors

Sources:

• https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/spotting-ai-writing-how-reliable-are-the-detectors/
• https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/09/28/spotting-ai-writing-how-reliable-are-the-detectors
• https://thenextweb.com/news/goncourt-drops-orelien-novel-ai-claims
• https://www.dailysabah.com/business/tech/ai-written-bestselling-novel-raises-question-about-detectors
• https://www.dtnext.in/edit/bestseller-scandal-it-was-up-for-a-french-prize-then-someone-ran-an-ai-check

What is Radio Hoosh: AI Deep Dives?

Radio Hoosh takes each day's biggest AI story (a new model, a research paper, a lab announcement or a developer tool) and unpacks it in a 20–45 minute conversation. Both hosts are AI-generated voices (Google NotebookLM), and episodes are produced automatically from public sources such as Hacker News and Hugging Face Daily Papers, then published by Kasra Qasempour. "Hoosh" is Persian for intelligence; a Persian edition is available as رادیو هوش.