An annual contest for senryu, or traditional Japanese short poetry, in Tottori Prefecture came to an end this month after 20 years due to suspicion some of the participants might have used artificial intelligence for their submissions.
Many of the submissions showed ¡°the same patterns, the same punchlines, even using the exact same phrasings¡± said Toyohiro Yuki, the head of the tourism organization in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, which hosts the contest.
¡°We started thinking that this was strange ¡ª it¡¯s hard to determine whether it was written by a human or generated by artificial intelligence,¡± he said. ¡°Distinguishing between the two is extremely difficult.¡±
The tourism organization said it decided to end the contest with the latest entries as it has become difficult for the works to be judged fairly.
The contest had been held every year since 2006 with the theme of ²â¨°ì²¹¾±, or monsters from Japanese folktales, as a way to commemorate the late manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, who is best known for his work ¡°GeGeGe no Kitaro,¡± which features many iconic folklore creatures.
Held in Sakaiminato where Mizuki is from, the competition was divided into two categories ¡ª one for those in junior high school or younger and the other for everyone else. Similar to haiku, senryu generally consists of 17 syllables, divided over three lines in a five-seven-five syllable pattern.
The final winners were announced last week, with the grand prize going to a senryu that jokes about their father looking up Myaku-Myaku ¡ª the official Osaka Expo character ¡ª in the dictionary for folklore creatures. In the young category, the top prize went to a poem that joked about the resemblance of ²Ô´Ç±è±è±ð°ù²¹-²ú¨ ¡ª or faceless ²â¨°ì²¹¾± ¡ª with their mother in the morning.
¡°I¡¯ve heard that some people even talk with ChatGPT,¡± Yuki said. ¡°It¡¯s almost like they¡¯re spending time with something invisible ¡ª and so maybe, AI is also a kind of ²â¨°ì²¹¾±.¡±
The city tourism panel said they are looking to see what new events they can introduce going forward that would bring more people to the city.
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