NaNoWriMo Weaponizes Social Justice Language in Endorsement of AI

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It’s the second day of my little tiny vacation, and I’ve woken up at the bright and early hour of 11 in the morning. I log onto social media to check my notifications and see what’s happening, and … I’m immediately alerted that those behind NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) have endorsed using theft-machines (AI) to generate books and stories, while weaponizing social justice language in order to emotionally manipulate their readers and writers.

404 Media wrote a fairly neutral article on the matter that doesn’t appear to take any position whatsoever, but I’m linking them here anyway, in order to contextualize who NaNoWriMo was, and is.

NaNoWriMo started as a group writing project in the ‘90s with the goal of writing a 50,000-word manuscript in one month (November), but in 2005, NaNoWriMo became a nonprofit organization that takes donations and runs fundraising campaigns.

But, let’s now take a look at their reasoning, and then tear those reasons to shreds. I’ll be calling NaNoWriMo “NNW” from here on out in this post, just because it’s easier to type than an abbreviation with annoying capitalization.

NNW says that condemning AI in writing is classist:

Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.

It’s true that, as writers and authors who don’t have access to thousands of dollars, it can be a hard time getting outside opinions and help on your writing. But, here’s the thing: You can still write a story, or a novel, without using machines that rip off other authors in order to edit and proofread (if you can call feeding your work into an LLM “editing” and “proofreading”). As an independent author, myself, I have friends, and sometimes I’ll conscript them to give me some opinions on what I’ve written. I also extensively comb over my writing (now, at least) when I’m putting a book together. Hence the reason it’s been taking me well over a year to make progress on my next book, Dissolution Protocol. I want to make something really good.

And it takes a lot of practice, and time, to become effective at spotting errors and issues in your own writing.

But here’s the thing: That’s fine! What’s the rush? The act of creating art is and always has been a slow-burn process of practicing, learning, and both failure and success. There’s nothing wrong with that! That’s how art is! And introducing AI into the matter cuts that out completely. All of it.

And that’s not to mention all of the other resources available to independent writers and authors. Join a discussion forum of writers and readers! Post snippets! There are so many online avenues you can use to find help with your writing that don’t cost you a dime, and you don’t have to rip off anyone in order to utilize them.

NNW also says that condemning AI in writing is ableist:

Not all brains have 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. The notion that all writers “should“ be able to perform certain functions independently or is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can’t “see” the issues in their writing without help.

In my opinion, this is the part where they get real manipulative, because now we’re using disabled people as our reason for saying it’s totally fine to use these planet-destroying bots to write for you (LLMs are more and more increasingly power hungry, so much so that Microsoft is considering building nuclear reactors to power them, and many current LLMs are burning tons and tons of fossil fuels in order to operate).

Yes, people sometimes need outside accommodations for reading and writing, like screen readers, and special keyboards, and, as I mentioned in my thoughts above, community forums where readers and writers collaborate together to troubleshoot their own work. Saying, “not all brains have the same abilities” in your endorsement of these machines is exactly how a psychopath would attempt to convince you that cutting off your own hand is beneficial to you, somehow.

Now, to be fair, this is what they actually say right at the start of their post on Zendesk:

NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI.

or, “We don’t explicitly support any specific approach to writing, and we don’t condemn any approach, such as AI, but also, here’s why we fully endorse using AI.”

I’m gonna be real with you, chief. I have used text-based AI. I’ve used it like Google to see if it could answer questions better and faster than a Google search would. Because, despite my grievances with most LLMs, and especially the image-generation machines that are completely and entirely based on theft and disenfranchisement, I don’t think these things are going anywhere. I think there are some limited uses for text-based AI. Like, you could open up, let’s say, ChatGPT and say, “Hey, what are some writing prompts that might be interesting?” or, “What are some resources I could use to get outside opinions and help on my writing?”

And sometimes, you do actually get decent answers. I just wouldn’t trust whatever the hell Google’s developing.

Now, let’s take a look at their continued opinions in regard to general access issues:

All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don’t always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.

So, we’re continuing to emotionally manipulate people by, instead of using disabled people this time, we’re going to use marginalized people, such as the LGBTQ+ community.

Yes, yes, finding an agent is hard. Getting a contract is even harder. In the years I’ve been writing fiction (since 2008), I’ve rebuffed the idea completely. Especially after, more recently, seeing examples of literary agents openly suggesting stealing an author’s query for themselves.

The world is a vampire. A pimple-infested, gout infected, disease ridden, vampire.

But, with this further explanation of their stance, NNW speaks as though being an “indie author” is not desirable, that it’s lesser, and I couldn’t disagree more.

Since I started writing, those who do have contracts, and who do have agents, have always taken to social media to speak like the privileged snobs some of them are. Saying that community-sourced editing and proofreading from authors who take to publishing themselves through avenues like Smashwords, aren’t as good, or are “lazy.” That you shouldn’t pay any attention to an author’s work, if it isn’t coming out of one of the big six.

And, sadly, authors utilizing AI to write books for them are only going to make independent publishing that much harder, because the optics around self publishing were already dark, and muddy, partially because of the gate-keeper jerks who speak like this.

You can be an independent author, and you can write a decent story, without using machines that not only steal from other writers, but will absolutely vacuum up the work you feed into it, in order to further compound this problem. And I’m going to say that again, so that it’s clear, you should not feed your work into an LLM (an AI), unless you want it stolen from you.

I can only imagine that the reason NNW has taken this stance, is because they must have suddenly received funding from some kind of Silicon Valley venture capital, right?

Right?

Anyway, those are the most important points I wanted to touch on in light of these, frankly, idiotic takes coming from NNW. If you’re going to endorse AI, you can at least do it without speaking to writers and readers like Hannibal-fucking-Lector, manipulating them into sitting down at the dinner table and prepping their own brain for consumption.

Update: And here you have it, NaNoWriMo is sponsored by a company that utilizes AI.