(sigh) Goodbye, NaNoWriMo
Fall is rapidly approaching and with it, a myriad of autumn activities. While the list includes hayrides, pumpkin picking, and eating themed desserts from Trader Joe’s, last year this also meant the blissful challenge of NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is by nature a nonprofit with 25 years of experience but in practice it’s a month in which authors are invited to write their novels over the course of the month of November, with their website offering a means of tracking your project and celebrating your achievements. Last year was my first year actually completing my goal and I felt so inspired that it fostered a whole wave of creativity in me. The ‘ber’ months can be stifling but NaNoWriMo truly rejuvenated me and going into this fall I was so excited to do round 2. However that excitement quickly turned to frustration when I learned that NaNoWriMo released a statement in which they affirmed that the condemnation of A.I. (of which we’ve seen a lot of specifically from writers and illustrators in particular) has classist and ableist undertones and is restrictive for people who do not have the same abilities or community as other writers (https://www.wired.com/story/nanowrimo-organizers-classist-and-ableist-to-condemn-ai/).
Now, if you’re like me you saw that statement, gagged a little bit, and went to delete your account but before we get away from ourselves, I want to expand on why this statement is account deletion worthy. First, there has been this marketing push to frame this new tool as some incredible new magic button technology that does everything and can completely think on its own. This is purely advertising spin. The reality is that a few greedy organizations are using what is essentially basic machine learning and training those programs on the existing intellectual property. Often without crediting the creators and especially without paying for paywalled work. This is why A.I. is wrong so often. They build off the wrong answers of the people they stole from and have no means of recognizing that. It also calls into question the ethical nature of anyone willing to use these tools to actually create. Simply put, you don’t create anything with A.I., you steal from several sources and call it your own. How can you call yourself a creative then?
Then there’s also the poor taste of the statement itself. It implies that would be writers that are poor or disabled simply can’t write like “other writers” and need to essentially cheat to be on par with their peers. I think it goes without saying that throughout history our brightest and most influential writers have come from very little and lived with disabilities. This assertation is disrespectful to their memory. It is these specific challenges that have made them compelling writers in the first place and if there are boundaries for these writers today then we need to change the way we understand these individuals, not change the very definition of creativity to suit corporate needs. I refuse to believe that the only way to write honestly is to be rich or able-bodied and we should push back on this belief with force.
I also want to push back on the idea that people would use A.I. for publishing reasons because what the hell is that? So I’m going to feed my work into an A.I. tool and it’s going to spit out a version that is more likely to get published? So the book I’m writing currently has an indigenous woman as a protagonist and we know publishing has a history of avoiding those types of stories. So if I put my manuscript into an A.I. tool it’ll spit out a protagonist less indigenous and it’ll help me get published? Like, am I nuts or is that gross? Wouldn’t that be an indication that publishing has to change to welcome a variety of stories in a genuine, non-2014 “post-racial” way? We’re supposed to be creatives with vibrant imaginations but we can’t even imagine a better landscape for the publishing of our own stories. Embarrassing.
Lastly the timing of all of this seems suspicious. Mostly in that they’ve put out this statement late enough in the year that people are thinking of them as they gear up for November, but early enough to attract new investors before the month officially starts. It seems to me like they are fishing for new money and going about it in a really clumsy way. Which is baffling considering they had such a stable and involved community that they could absolutely rely on for funds. See how greed makes you shortsighted?
Since the release of their statement, they have added a note acknowledging the backlash and the troubling cases of misuse within A.I. but the damage has been done. They have lost sponsors and support and the future of the organization looks shaky at best. Hopefully they can learn from this and bounce back but the fact that the statement is still up is not encouraging. It goes without saying that I’ll be looking for a different alternative.
If you have an alternative you use, please let me know. I want to get this novel finished this year and I desperately need a due date to do that!
That is so fucking depressing and disappointing 😭😭 Of all the communities this feels like such an incongruous hill to die on. Hope they can make up for it somehow between now and November cause they really did build something beyond them.