It Was Either That Or AI

On August 19, 2026, C'était ça ou mourir by Thélyson Orélien was published and became an instant hit. Originally released in France, the title, which translates to "It Was That or Die," was Orélien's debut novel, raking in accomplishments such as the Prix du roman Fnac and a first selection for the Prix Goncourt. Yet, just a few weeks later as quick as the praise rolled in, an ominous social media post made it all vanish, with claims of Orélien using artificial intelligence to write his work.

The novel is told through the eyes of Jonas Dorléon, who has a Haitian background, same as Orélien. It is about a history and geography teacher's forced migration from Port-au-Prince due to the violence, traveling through the Southern hemisphere in order to get up North to Canada. Similar to Orélien's story of growing up in Haiti but needing to leave suddenly after the 2010 earthquake, seeking his family that was already settled in Quebec. The themes and timing of the book seemed to have tugged at the heart strings of readers as it uplifted the immigrant community and those seeking refuge, needing a figure of hope.

Yet, across headlines, Orélien's once heartfelt piece is now being challenged and scrutinized with no actual evidence of AI usage or not. The post came on September 23rd from the account Balance ton Claude, which is ironically a twist on the company Anthropic and their Claude AI model. It shared screenshots of excerpts of the text run through an AI test model, showing that in most cases 100% of the text was written by AI. Independent French publications did runs of the same excerpts on their own and got the same results, confirming the anonymous poster's claims.

As this growing use of AI has many on edge as to what's real and what's fake, determining who they can turn to for authentic literature and thought-provoking pieces is looking to be more of a challenge every single day. Many authors have stood their ground with stances of using no AI whatsoever, while others are more lenient, saying they don't mind using it for brainstorming or organizing notes. However for Orélien, C'était ça ou mourir was removed from the first selection for the Prix Goncourt, and the Strasbourg Espoir CIC prize, a harsh but conclusive decision made by the board.

Yet, Orélien started his career in 2007, where he won the international prize for young authors Switzerland with his entry titled Les Couleurs de ma terre or "The Colors of My Land," and a Radio-Canada award in 2012 for a short story of his, "Where is the World Going?" He then pivoted his writing career into one of justice, earning his law degree in Haiti and then studying politics at the University of Montreal

Yet, are we passing judgements too quickly? Jon Malysiak from Medium warns of the “ease with which a screenshot from an AI detector can travel around the internet as though it were conclusive proof.” If a single flawed screenshot can convict a writer, what does this say about how we weigh evidence. Are we willing to cast away authentic writing and creativity in fear of being deceived?  If we respond to that fear by accusing everyone of using AI or beginning to have an automatic mistrust over any writing we don’t just punish authors and creators, but also change the incentives. Originality will no longer be an asset but a liability and the safest route would be to lean into and normalize AI approaches to writing and crafting stories in order to get ahead of the backlash. In trying to protect and uphold writing standards, we may end up normalizing the very thing we feared, and drive real creativity further into the shadows.