Eisteddfod judges accuse Welsh author of using AI

Author denies AI claims

Romy Wood, a Welsh learner from Cardiff, entered her novel Y Dderwen under the pseudonym Lithedora for the Daniel Owen Memorial Prize, which is awarded to unpublished novels of at least 50,000 words.

As BBC Wales reported, judges initially called it “disgraceful” that one of the nine entrants had used AI “in a competition as important as this one”, something Wood denies.

Why the Eisteddfod AI row matters

During Tuesday's ceremony, judge Meinir Wyn Edwards said there was “no plan or narrative arc in this novel” and that its “clumsy, flawed expression makes the whole thing almost impossible to read”, adding that the panel suspected “an artificial intelligence machine created the novel”.

Despite the criticism, the adjudicators added that they hoped to one day see “this new author for our language wearing the medal”.

The independent adjudicators later said they were “deeply sorry to have caused distress”. The episode lays bare how hard it is becoming for judges to tell human writing from machine-generated text, a dilemma competitions across the arts are now grappling with.