Investigating whether a novel is AI slop after printing and publishing it seems like a decidedly inefficient way to go about this sort of thing, does it not? There are certain things AI loves; is obsessed with; seemingly cannot break itself out of doing, any they’re all present in spades within the text of Shy Girl. The release of that video was effectively the culmination of what had already been months of niche literary communities openly interrogating whether the book was AI. In what world could the text of Shy Girl have passed through any review structure meant to discern AI writing, and not set off alarm bells? That publishers are increasingly deficient at pursuing their stated goal to preserve human writing in the professional “literary” world, and that more and more AI slop will slip through undetected?

Source: New York Times March 20, 2026 20:18 UTC