Chinese Literary Magazines Declare Ban on AI-Generated Works

A coalition of 24 literary magazines from across China has issued a joint declaration vowing to reject works produced with artificial intelligence. The statement, titled "Defending Creation and Rejecting Artificial Intelligence," explicitly bars AI-generated content, including pieces where AI was used for writing, editing, or refining text. This collective stance highlights a growing tension within China's literary circles as they seek to preserve human creativity against the backdrop of widespread AI integration.

The participating magazines cited a surge in "fake creative works" submitted to their editorial departments. They argue that submitting AI-generated content, even with minor edits, under a human author's name constitutes plagiarism and deprives genuine writers of publication opportunities. To enforce the ban, the signatories have agreed to blacklist authors whose works are found to be AI-generated and to share information among themselves.

This initiative follows similar moves within China's literary establishment. The China Writers Association, for instance, revised its submission guidelines in February to prohibit AI-generated or AI-assisted works, extending the ban to text generation, continuation, adaptation, and polishing. The literary journal "Shanghai Literature" has also reportedly begun requiring authors to sign a "original work declaration" stating they have not used AI in their creative process.

Debates are ongoing in China regarding the precise definition of AI-generated content and the extent to which authors must disclose AI usage. While some authors, like Hugo Award winner Hao Jingfang, have clarified that AI played a supplementary role in their work, the core issue of safeguarding human authorship remains a significant concern for many in the literary field.

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Literature is a humanistic study, not a product of a mechanized assembly line.