B B Elsin’s 3,000 word short story “Be Careful What You Wish For” won the Slough Writers’ Group Summer Short Story Competition of 2027. The competition was unusual in that it was set by AI and judged by AI against six criteria: originality and imagination (5), characterisation (5), plot and pacing (5), quality of writing (5), effective use of the theme (5), and overall impact (10). The participants were absolutely forbidden to use AI at all, even for research. B B’s story, which was quirkily supernatural and included some philosophical suggestion and ironic humour, received 34 out of 35 points. Arguably, the AI bot is objective and the writing is therefore endorsed as meeting the criteria required, but endorsement by a bot is a double-edged sword, as most writing communities oppose the use of AI to enhance or to test human creativity, with good reason. But with publishers using AI in their editorial processes, perhaps writers need to adapt to evaluation by bot?
