On September 19, 2025, Justyna Bargielska, an acclaimed and award-winning Polish poet and writer, announced in a Facebook post that her forthcoming book of poetry had been written “in cooperation with AI,” instantly igniting a lively debate in the comments section. Some users expressed admiration for the writer’s decision, while others voiced objections, viewing such a strategy as a harbinger of “a decline in literary standards and values.” Bargielska admits that she uses AI in her creative process, pointing to the hostility such a declaration can provoke.
However, Bargielska is not the only writer to make use of AI. Rie Kudan, a Japanese author, faced fierce backlash after admitting that she had used ChatGPT to write her novel Sympathy Tokyo Tower (Tōkyō-to Dōjō-tō). While accepting the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, the novelist revealed that AI-generated content constituted approximately 5% of the book. There were also those who defended Kudan’s use of ChatGPT, pointing out that it was her unique style and creativity that constituted the literary value of the work. Kudan has already declared that she will continue to integrate AI into future projects.
Regardless of whether we are enthusiastic about it or not, there is no doubt that AI is – and will continue to be – increasingly present in our lives, including literature and publishing. New technologies not only assist writers in their work but also transform market reality. Dr. Agnieszka Marzęda has decided to explore this subject in depth in her new project, Self-publishing in the era of artificial intelligence: new models of authorship, quality, and content legitimization, which has received funding from the MINIATURA 9 program of the National Science Centre (NCN).
Self-publishing in times of transformation
Dr. Marzęda focuses on self-publishing, understood as books published by authors themselves without the involvement of traditionally defined publishing houses. In this model, authors are responsible for every stage of the process: content, form, editing, and marketing. Self-publishers gain full autonomy, but they also assume full responsibility. At the same time, artificial intelligence can facilitate the process and make it more accessible than ever before.
“This project is a major step for me, as it allows me to explore self-publishing at a moment of enormous change – when artificial intelligence is becoming an integral part of the creative process. I want to understand how AI affects the process of making a book and how readers, publishers, and editors perceive it. I am particularly interested in the extent to which people trust AI-generated content, how authorship is being redefined, and what mechanisms legitimize books published outside traditional circulation. To investigate this, I will study readers’ declarations through a nationwide survey, as well as conduct interviews with practitioners and analyze tools and platforms. Only in this way can we get a full picture of this transformation,” Dr. Marzęda explains.
New technologies push boundaries even further. AI can offer authors alternative endings, suggest plot developments, or create descriptions of cities they have never visited. It can also analyze which parts of previous books were read most frequently and propose similar solutions. AI can proofread texts, produce tables of contents, and even generate book covers and illustrations. Thanks to automatic translations and audio versions, a book is capable of attracting readers around the world.
Virtual reality (VR) goes a step further. As Dr. Marzęda points out, thanks to VR, reading a book may no longer be a passive activity but instead become a fully immersive experience. Readers will be able to enter a book’s world, walk its streets, talk to characters, and even influence the course of events. VR may also allow for Q&A sessions with authors in virtual space, where physical distance no longer matters.
The decline of the author?
These are just a few of the possibilities that modern technology offers, and their number will undoubtedly grow. This ongoing transformation prompts a fundamental question: what role will authors play in the creative process? Since AI is already capable of generating texts, will it replace authors altogether? Will literary prizes be awarded to works created by algorithms? Or will books just become products tailored exclusively to readers’ tastes and needs?
“I do not believe that authors will become redundant, although their role will continue to evolve. AI and VR introduce new tools that can accelerate or facilitate the writing process, but it is the author who gives a book meaning, emotion, and individual style. Readers’ expectations and content personalization will likely play a greater role, but I do not see this as a threat. Authors may become architects of narratives or guardians of content, using technology consciously rather than allowing it to take control of the creative process. I believe literature will continue to value authentic voices, even if they are enhanced by new solutions,” Dr. Marzęda notes.
The presence of AI in literature also raises ethical questions. How can we find a balance so that technology supports authors rather than replaces them?
“The creative process is already becoming more hybrid – many writers incorporate AI as a source of inspiration or as a tool for generating ideas. This can be an asset, as long as clear boundaries are established between AI-generated content and that created by the author. Will we see AI-generated texts winning literary prizes? Most likely, yes – but only if fair rules for evaluation are put in place. Balance can be achieved through transparency: if we know what role AI played in the process, we can consciously assess the final product. Literature has always been a space for experimentation and artistic exploration; today, cooperation between humans and machines can become such an experiment. The most intriguing question for me is how to maintain balance while preserving the integrity and accountability of the author,” Dr. Marzęda explains.
Dr. Marzęda also points out that, in the future, transparency in the creative process may be reinforced by specific technological tools, such as blockchain, which could allow every stage of the writing process–from the first draft through subsequent revisions–to be stored in an unchangeable register. This would make it easy to verify which parts of a book were written by the author and which were generated by AI. Blockchain could also enable the automatic settlement of copyrights and royalties: each purchase of a book or its part would activate a system record and an instant payment. This would make content distribution not only more transparent but also fairer.
The text was originally published in Polish on the Serwis Naukowy UW website on October 16, 2025.
