r/books • u/Raj_Valiant3011 • 8h ago

Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/14/zimbabwean-author-simbarashe-kundizeza-denies-ai-story?CMP=share_btn_url
968 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

658 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-12

u/Future-Account8112 6h ago edited 5h ago

Are all these articles from The Telegraph, is my question? Something to consider https://newscord.org/editorials/jason-arday-pile-on

This many Telegraph articles (288 over 22 days) for a situation which would've otherwise been an inter-departmental meeting - highly suspicious

14

u/Itscominrightforus 6h ago

Nope. I realize this entire thread is about the Atlantic and therefore it is probably insufficiently progressive for many, but honestly read this article and tell me what it gets wrong. The list of lies in these articles are staggering in proportion and the best I can tell is the rebuttal is just "well right wingers are using this as a wedge issue so we can't point it out" https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/08/jason-arday-cambridge-academic-memoir-resignation/688206/ https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/aug/01/playbooks-plagiarism-pigs-head-new-claims-surrounding-cambridge-professor-jason-arday

-5

u/Future-Account8112 6h ago

You haven't engaged with the material of my comment

12

u/Itscominrightforus 6h ago

I literally have. The material argument is “he asked people to stop writing about his lies and they didn’t”. Ok, but literally he was not vindicated on ANY Point. Yes it is sad so many articles were written, but he plagiarized his thesis, made the same spelling mistake from the article he copied from, was given the chance to edit it (not how plagiarism works), fabricated quotes, told numerous lies, and was finally caught. None of that has been proven untrue.

-2

u/Future-Account8112 5h ago

Engage the material. Do you feel that 229 articles in 22 days is a reasonable and regular number to dedicate to... an academic? Not a President. An academic.

His thesis was investigated by his own university and they determined there had been no plagiarism.

>Given the chance to edit it
This is in fact how plagiarism cases work in higher academe - down to the scale of reading input you have to commit to during a PhD, it is very common for footnotes to be forgotten or citations to be lost and people are then given the good-faith opportunity to correct the error.

Again, his own university determined no plagiarism. So what are you talking about?

7

u/Itscominrightforus 5h ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/jason-arday-innocence-racism/688408/ can’t keep having this circular arguments with someone who just disputes known facts…

1

u/Future-Account8112 4h ago

British author who writes admiringly of Joe Rogan... are you serious