What will be the NaNoWriMo position on artificial intelligence (AI)?
The group that administers National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has condemned AI as “classist and ableist,” and participants in its annual writing challenge are outraged.
In a Zendesk post titled “What is NaNoWriMo’s position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?,” NaNoWriMo organizers said that it “does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI.”
NaNoWriMo began as a group writing effort in the 1990s with the objective of completing a 50,000-word work in one month (November), but in 2005, it became a nonprofit organization accepting donations and running fundraising campaigns.
“We also want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege,” the write-up reads. It then discusses how it believes AI condemnation is classist, ableist, and raises general accessibility concerns.
“Not all brains have [sic] same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing,” according to the organizers in their “Ableism” portion. “Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals.”
Last year, a collection of writers, including Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Jodi Picoult, sued OpenAI and sought class-action status, alleging that ChatGPT duplicated their work without authorization. Last month, a collection of eight news sites, including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, and many other papers, filed a lawsuit in federal court, alleging that OpenAI “purloined millions” of copyrighted news stories without permission or payment.
When it came to the employment of AI in writing, NaNoWriMo adopted a more moderate stand last year, saying that “winning” is a personal accomplishment that has traditionally been determined by honor. You are free to use AI if it will help you with your creative process, the organizers noted. “Yet, it would be counterproductive to use ChatGPT to write your whole novel.”
