WRiters turn their back on ai-backed writing

by Emily Chu, President

Arts and Entertainment

For the past 25 years, writers from all around the world have gathered in November with one similar goal in mind. Write one novel in one month. 50,000 words total, 1,667 words a day. The organization behind this event, Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), garnered over 400,000 participants in the year 2022 alone. This year, Nanowrimo will be lucky to even garner half that number. 

Early September this year, author and Nanowrimo writers board member, Daniel José Older, released a statement titled NaNoHellNo, where he publicly condemned Nanowrimo’s support for a long-time sponsor ProWritingAid, who had recently unveiled a feature called AI Sparks. According to their website, the feature offers more than 20 different ‘rewriting’ options for writers, including using AI to improve readability, add sensory details, and change tenses.

“Your position on AI is vile, craven, and unconscionable. You are harming writers and you are harming the planet,” Older wrote in an email to the Nanowrimo board. “No need to respond, not interested in debating this with you.

Since then, four more members of Nanowrimo’s board have publicly quit, with countless ML’s (municipal liaisons, or regional volunteers for Nanowrimo) quitting as well. Morris, a member of Nanowrimo’s writer board, immediately cut all ties with the organization upon hearing the news, telling WIRED that she had “a very hard line when it comes to these generative AI programs.”

Generative AI, which Older calls a “clown-shaped bubble that is about to pop,” is a contentious topic for writers. “It makes cursed, soulless garbage,” Older said. “And it steals s[***] [...] without permission, s[***] that people worked hard on and poured their heart and soul into, and repurposes that s[***} into said cursed soulless garbage.”

Nanowrimo released a statement almost immediately, in a now revised post titled “What is Nanowrimo’s position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?” calling the categorical condemnation of Generative AI “classist” and “ableist.” Nanowrimo argued in their public statement that “not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. [...] Not all brains have the same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals.” 

Nanowrimo’s response only generated more heat however, leading them to publish another post just days later, acknowledging “bad actors” in the AI space, and that they are “troubled by situational abuse,” but Generative AI is a technology that is “simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse.”

The pushback on Nanowrimo’s stance has been fierce, with writer Grace Anderson commenting that “as a disabled author, I found the section on ableism just a little insulting. We are perfectly capable of putting in the work to write our own projects without ripping from AI.”

Many others echo Anderson’s opinion, disagreeing with Nanowrimo’s stance on classism as well. Countless writing groups, forums, subreddits, and servers are dedicated solely to the exchange of critiques (at zero cost) between authors. “Every single writers group I've ever been in has been full of people who are not only willing, but eager to proofread and edit each other's work,” said an online netizen regarding Nanowrimo’s claim, “for nothing more than the joy of it and the knowledge that somewhere down the line the favor will come back around.”

As of today, Nanowrimo has not stepped down from their stance regarding AI, and remains sponsored by ProWritingAid this November. “An organization for writers that supports Gen AI is not an organization for writers,” Older said in his closing statement. “It’s a clown car.” 

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the various authors in this paper do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Kamiak High School or The Gauntlet. 

Sources

NaNoHellNo. (n.d.). Retrieved November 2, 2024, from https://danieljosolder.substack.com/p/nanohellno 

NaNoWriMo Organizers Said It Was Classist and Ableist to Condemn AI. All Hell Broke Loose. (n.d.).

    Retrieved November 2, 2024, from https://www.wired.com/story/nanowrimo-organizers-classist-and-ableist-to-condemn-ai/ 

Pro Writing Aid. (n.d.). Retrieved November 2, 2024, from https://prowritingaid.com/