The author embracing AI to help write novels – and why he’s not worried about it taking his job

Published

2 years ago

August 20, 2023

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The rain tapped lightly against the windowpanes of my London apartment, a steady rhythm that mirrored the musings within my little grey cells.

It was a day like any other, or so I believed, until a peculiar letter arrived. As I delicately unfolded the note, its contents gave rise to a most intriguing puzzle.

‘Mr Hercule Poirot,’ it began in elegant script, ‘I implore you to lend your unparalleled expertise to a matter of utmost secrecy and importance.

‘An enigma of art, an amalgamation of shadows, a crescendo of whispers, await your perceptive insight.’

Asked to open a new novel starring detective Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie’s most famous creations, that’s ChatGPT‘s first attempt at grabbing your attention.

Ciphers Of The Midnight Mind is the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot’s suggested title – and it could no doubt craft the entire rest of the story in a matter of seconds.

For fans of the more than century-old character, whose popularity has endured beyond Christie’s death in 1976, new stories composed on demand may be a tantalising prospect.

After all, the author’s estate – like those who hold the keys to James Bond and Sherlock Holmes – has happily commissioned other writers to give readers new Poirot and Miss Marple adventures. Who’s to say those same fans couldn’t find enjoyment in a passable imitation by AI?

For many writers, it’s an existential question that has them fearing for their livelihoods.

But for Ajay Chowdhury, an award-winning crime author, it presents an opportunity for them to reach new heights.

“There’s a lot of fear around it for a writer – but I don’t believe it is going to replace us,” he says.

“I started experimenting with AI in writing six or seven months ago, and it was of course slightly scary.

“But it’s like having a fantastic editor on demand.”

Useful editor or existential threat?

Chowdhury’s fascination with AI speaks to his background in tech, one which included co-founding the music discovery app Shazam, later bought by Apple for a reported $400m (then £300m).

But he is now known for his Kamil Rahman crime series, inspired by his Indian roots, which has won him several awards and will see a fifth entry – The Spy – released next year.

AI tools are playing a key role in its development – helping Chowdhury bounce thoughts around, generate potential outcomes for certain scenes, and rephrase sections to help with pacing.

He even used an image generator, Midjourney, to visualise a dramatic chase scene through a cave on the island of Elephanta, a world heritage site off the coast of Mumbai. It helped spark ideas about how it could play out.

“Eight out of 10 times, whatever AI gives you might be thrown away, but the other two times you might think it’s a decent idea that can be expanded on,” he says.

“Using a combination of these tools is giving me a much better draft to submit. I am finding that I get to what would have been a fifth draft by the second draft.”

For Chowdhury, there’s no shame in using AI to help get there, despite what many of his contemporaries fear.

Earlier this month, author Jane Friedman had to contend with AI-generated books purportedly written in her name, falsely listed as such on Amazon. She managed to have them removed, despite them not technically falling foul of copyright law because she had not trademarked her name.

“This promises to be a serious problem for the book publishing world,” she warns.

‘Marvel formula’ most at risk

More than 100,000 writers have endorsed an open letter by America’s Authors Guild, which has demanded AI’s development show “respect for human creators and copyright”.

Generative models like ChatGPT are trained on huge amounts of trademarked material, prompting writers including comedian Sarah Silverman to sue its creator OpenAI for copyright infringement.

This potential to imitate human work is a driving force behind ongoing writers’ strikes in Hollywood.

TV and theatre writer Lisa Holdsworth, who is chair of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, told the Sky News Daily podcast that would constitute theft more than creation, and the longer AI models are left to be trained without safeguards in place, “the more of a threat it becomes”.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

Chowdhury backs the cause, saying left to its own devices, AI will only serve to indulge mediocrity.

“That beige world of creativity where everything is sequel 32 to something, that worries me,” he admits.

“Look at films like Oppenheimer and Barbie, both extremely well written. Could AI create those? No. But could they write the next Marvel? Possibly, it’s a pretty clear formula.”

A world of mediocrity?

For Chowdhury, the genie is out of the bottle and there’s no going back – writers, like all of us, need to adapt.

Aside from the next main entry in his Kamil Rahman series, AI helped Chowdhury find time to work with Google on interactive novel The Invitation, a crime story set in London’s East End.

The free short story – which includes puzzles to solve, a countdown timer, and sound effects – was made with commuters in mind and only takes around 20 minutes to get through.

It’s a little heavy on the Google product placement, with nods to Gmail and Maps that are clever or eye-rolling depending on your level of cynicism, though as a proof of concept for quick to make, accessible interactive novels, the kinds of which gamers have long been familiar, overall it’s quite effective.

The whole thing came together in six weeks to mark the UK launch of the tech giant’s new Pixel Fold phone, optimised to take advantage of its book-like screen. The production speed helped by Chowdhury generating the artwork using Midjourney.

It does the job, but it’s a move that will no doubt rub some the wrong way given the criticism levelled at Marvel for using AI to generate opening title graphics for its latest TV series.

But Chowdhury still sees AI as a tool to take him and others “to another level”.

“The utopia to me is people using AI to enhance their creativity,” he says.

“The side that worries me is if large corporations start to think we don’t need creatives any more.

“That will become a world of mediocrity.”

As the rain continued to dance its elegy on the windowpane, Poirot leaned back in his chair, his little grey cells still whirring with satisfaction.

For within the labyrinthine corridors of art and deception, he had once again illuminated the truth, dispelling the shadows that sought refuge in the enigmatic corners of the human soul.

Thanks, ChatGPT, but when it comes to Poirot, I think I’ll stick with Christie.

UK

UK looking at Denmark model to cut illegal migration

Published

7 hours ago

November 8, 2025

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UK looking at Denmark model to cut illegal migration

The Home Office is looking at what Denmark is doing to cut illegal migration, Sky News understands.

Last month, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood dispatched officials to the Nordic nation to study its border control and asylum policies, which are considered some of the toughest in Europe.

In particular, officials are understood to be looking at Denmark’s tighter rules on family reunion and restricting most refugees to a temporary stay in the country.

Ms Mahmood will announce a major shake-up of the UK’s immigration system later this month, PA is reporting.

Labour MPs are said to be split on the move.

Some, in so-called Red Wall seats which are seen as vulnerable to challenge from Reform UK, want ministers to go further in the direction Denmark has taken.

But others believe the policies will estrange progressive voters and push the Labour Party too far to the right.

What are Denmark’s migration rules?

Denmark has adopted increasingly restrictive rules in order to deal with migration over the last few years.

In Denmark, most asylum or refugee statuses are temporary. Residency can be revoked once a country is deemed safe.

In order to achieve settlement, asylum seekers are required to be in full-time employment, and the length of time it takes to acquire those rights has been extended.

Denmark also has tougher rules on family reunification – both the sponsor and their partner are required to be at least 24 years old, which the Danish government says is designed to prevent forced marriages.

The sponsor must also not have claimed welfare for three years and must provide a financial guarantee for their partner. Both must also pass a Danish language test.

In 2018, Denmark introduced what it called a ghetto package, a controversial plan to radically alter some residential areas, including by demolishing social housing. Areas with over 1,000 residents were defined as ghettos if more than 50% were “immigrants and their descendants from non-Western countries”.

In 2021, the left of centre government passed a law that allowed refugees arriving on Danish soil to be moved to asylum centres in a partner country – and subsequently agreed with Rwanda to explore setting up a program, although that has been put on hold.

It comes as the government continues to struggle to get immigration under control, with rising numbers of small boat crossings in the Channel over the last few months and a migrant, deported under the UK’s returns deal with France, re-entering the country.

Some 648 people crossed the Channel to Britain in nine boats on Friday, according to Home Office figures, bringing the total for the year to 38,223.

Ms Mahmood wants deterrents in place to stop migrants seeking to enter the country via unauthorised routes.

She also wants to make it easier to remove those who are found to have no right to stay in the UK.

Sources told the PA news agency she was eager to meet her Danish counterpart, Rasmus Stoklund, the country’s immigration minister, at the earliest possible convenience.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Mr Stoklund likened Danish society to “the hobbits in The Lord Of The Rings” and said people coming to the country who do not contribute positively would not be welcome.

Mr Stoklund said: “We are a small country. We live peacefully and quietly with each other. I guess you could compare us to the hobbits in The Lord Of The Rings.”

“We expect people who come here to participate and contribute positively, and if they don’t they aren’t welcome.”

The split in Labour was apparent from public comments by MPs today.

Stoke-on-Trent Central Labour MP Gareth Snell told Radio 4’s Today programme that any change bringing “fairness” to an asylum system that his constituents “don’t trust” was “worth exploring”.

But Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome, who is a member of the party’s Socialist Campaign Group caucus, said: “I think these are policies of the far right. I don’t think anyone wants to see a Labour government flirting with them.”

UK

How a cup of coffee led Sky News to a sex offender on the run

Published

22 hours ago

November 8, 2025

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How a cup of coffee led Sky News to a sex offender on the run

It started with a strong espresso in a simple cafe on a side street in north London.

Several Algerian men were inside, a few others were outside on the pavement, smoking.

I’d been told the wanted prisoner might be in Finsbury Park, so I ordered a coffee and asked if they’d seen him.

They were happy to tell me that some of them knew Brahim Kaddour-Cherif – the 24-year-old offender who was on the run.

One of the customers revealed to me that he’d actually seen him the night before.

“He wants to hand himself to police,” the friend said candidly.

This was the beginning of the end of a high-profile manhunt.

The Algerian convicted sex offender had been at large since 29 October, after he was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth in south London.

Within an hour of meeting the friend in the cafe, he had followed myself and camera operator Josh Masters to a nearby street.

We weren’t yet filming – he didn’t want any attention or fuss surrounding him.

“Follow me, he’s in the park,” the man told me.

“Follow – but not too close.”

We did.

I was in the same park a few weeks ago after fugitive Hadush Kebatu, the Ethiopian sex offender – also wrongly released from prison – was arrested in Finsbury Park.

It was odd to be back in the same spot in such similar circumstances.

Read more on Tom’s story:
Wrongly released prisoner’s angry reaction
‘I’m glad he’s been arrested‘

As he led us through the park past joggers, young families and people playing tennis, the man headed for the gates near Finsbury Park station.

All of a sudden, two police officers ran past us.

The Met had received a tip-off from a member of the public.

It was frantic. Undercover officers, uniformed cops, screeching tyres and blaring sirens. We were in the middle of the manhunt.

As they scoured the streets at speed, we walked by some of the Algerian men I’d seen in the cafe.

One man near the group was wearing green tracksuit bottoms, a beanie hat and had glasses on.

“It’s him, it’s him,” one of the other men said to me, gesturing towards him.

The man in the beanie then quickly turned on his heel and walked off.

“It’s him, it’s him,” another guy agreed.

The suspect was walking off while the police were still searching the nearby streets.

Josh and I caught up with him and I asked directly: “Are you Brahim?”

You may have watched the exchange in the Sky News video – he was in denial, evasive and pretended the suspect had pedalled off on a Lime bike.

I can only guess he knew the game was up, but for whatever reason, he was keeping up the lie.

Moments later, one of the bystanders told me “it is him” – with added urgency.

Only the prisoner knows why he then walked up to the nearby police van – officers quickly moved to handcuff him and tell him why he was being arrested.

Over the next 10 minutes, he became agitated. His story changed as I repeatedly asked if he had been the man inside HMP Wandsworth.

Officers needed confirmation too – one quickly pulled out a smartphone and checked an image of the wanted man from one of Sky News’ online platforms.

“It’s not my f****** fault, they release me!” he yelled at me.

The search was over, the prisoner cage in the back of the van was opened and he was guided in.

I then spoke to another Algerian man who had tipped off the police – he told me he hated sex offenders and the shame he felt over the whole episode.

The community had done the right thing – there were two tip-offs – one to me, one to the police.

The farce of this manhunt had gone on long enough.

UK

Nadjib, who tipped off police over released prisoner Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, tells Sky News he’s ‘happy to see him arrested’

Published

22 hours ago

November 8, 2025

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Nadjib, who tipped off police over released prisoner Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, tells Sky News he's 'happy to see him arrested'

“It’s him, it’s him, it’s him”, the man told me urgently.

While police were frantically searching in Finsbury Park for wanted sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, locals were telling me where he was.

Immediately after the dramatic arrest, filmed exclusively by Sky News we spoke to the North African man who tipped off the police.

Nadjib had been on the lookout for the convicted sex offender, who had been spending time in different parts of north London since his release from HMP Wandsworth.

He even had a folded-up newspaper clipping in his pocket so that he could check the picture himself.

He told Sky News he was “very happy when he got arrested”.

“I don’t like the sex offenders,” he said.

“I know him from the community. He has been around here every night since he was released from prison.”

Not only did he tip the police off about the prisoner’s whereabouts, but he also witnessed the other high-profile manhunt that ended in the same park last month.

Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu was also arrested in Finsbury Park after a 48-hour manhunt in the capital. He was then deported to Ethiopia.