This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Asa Conroy. Find them on Instagram at @asakayconroy. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
As November draws even closer, many writers are beginning to prepare to write a novel in 30 days. However, that excitement evaporated when NaNoWriMo announced its new AI policy. While the nonprofit claims the policy neither condemns or endorse the use of generative AI in writing, it also calls all those in opposition classist and ableist. Instead of feeling encouragement, potential participants are feeling offended by the non-profit’s portrayal of poor and disabled writers. So where did this NaNoWriMo controversy begin?
One of the tweets that sparked the anger comes from writer, Casey Stegman, brought the new policy to everyone’s attention. In the original policy, which has been changed after the backlash, NaNoWriMo portrayed themselves as neutral but laid out some heavy accusations. They stated that their mission was to encourage writers no matter what and cannot control the tools that they use for their creations. Technically, this part true as NaNoWriMo merely tracks writers’ progress and helps them format their writing once it is completed. It has never been able to check how the novel was created.
However, the claim that writers against generative AI having “classist and ableist” undertones threw NaNoWriMo’s neutrality out of the window. Accusations of classism and ableist are heavy claims to lay against someone. They are both extremely serious and potentially defamatory topics that could damage someone’s public perception, especially if they are already a published participant.
How Could NaNoWriMo Deal Out Such Accusations?
NaNoWriMo defended its stance that not all writers have the financial ability to find humans who are willing to help at any stage of their writing. This could include anywhere from research before the author begins to write or proofreading afterwards. NaNoWriMo called this deemed this a practical decision over an ideological one. They also claimed that writers are against anyone who chose to use AI in this way privileged and unable to understand the financial struggle of obtaining feedback or building community.
When it came to disabilities, they claimed that some writers did not have the brains, function, or level of education to write a novel. Additionally, disabilities of any nature could prevent writers from being able to write 50k words in 30 days. This defense of AI as accommodation also relies on a belief that some disabled people did not have the ability to be creative enough to fully perform all steps deemed necessary in writing a story. These writers apparently require the help of artificial intelligence rather than other human beings.
Lastly, they expanded their AI policy to other marginalized writers who find it difficult to receive the same treatment in traditional publishing spaces as other writers. NaNoWriMo claimed that AI was the avenue to resolve this issue.
How did writers feel about this?
Simply, everyone hated it. NaNoWriMo received backlash from all over the writing community for this portrayal of marginalized writers. Everyone ranging from fanfic aficionados to award winning authors spoke up against the language used in their policy, finding it more offensive than encouraging. Many authors once supportive of the nonprofit organization have now stepped down from its board and ask that anything linking their work to be removed from the website. Other writers are deleting their accounts in droves while many sponsors withdrew their money.
There were a small number of supporters, generally those who are pro-AI and others who believed NaNoWriMo was referring to nongenerative AI. While spell-check and speech-to-text devices use some amount of artificial intelligence to function, people in writing spaces do not collectively group those together with generative AI. NaNoWriMo edited their policy shortly after the backlash to separate generative AI and non-generative AI with support for both. Losing even more support.
Let’s Breakdown this Backlash
When it comes to the financial aspects of feedback, many writers have faced this difficulty and found solutions. Some may ask friends, family, or local writing groups to check their work. Others turn to freelancers or online editors looking to pad out their portfolio. Additionally, NaNoWriMo accidentally insulted their platform by making this policy as their forums were supposed to help people avoid this problem. NaNoWriMo participants are supposed to be able to find local or online groups so that people can find humans with the ability to help them at any stage of their writing process.
The organization also provides coupon codes from writing and note-taking programs. However, if writers do not have the constant internet connection or financial ability to acquire those, a notebook and a pencil can cost under one dollar. A constant internet connection would be necessary for AI generative content, but a notebook can constantly sit in your backpack.
While many AI supporters are attempting to push the idea that generative AI helps disabled artists create, disabled artists have argued they’ve never needed it. Studies have shown that the only thing that increases with AI is the number of works being created, but the creativity and confidence of writers decrease as a result. Effectively, the idea that someone can be “too disabled to create” is appalling and degrading the successes of authors like Stephen Hawking or artists such as Zuly Sanguino.
This also ignores the accessibility options already created that aide disabled writers. There are a variety of accessible keyboards that accommodate a large range of physical, cognitive, or visual disabilities. Others may find microphones useful for speech-to-text writing, if a keyboard is not for him. All of which can be check by another person to correct any time you write “sea” when you mean “see.” Accessibility options are not always the easiest to obtain or maintain, disabled writers know that very well. However, essentially telling people to give up is not a more accessible argument.
NaNoWriMo’s attempt to be supportive of marginalized communities failed. As of now they have apologized for their wording, but not their position. They still claim the only issue with AI in writing are the “bad apples that spoil the bunch” along with their remaining sponsors. Those remaining sponsors are reportedly agreeing with NaNoWriMo’s sentiment.
We apologize that our original message was unclear and seemingly random. Our note on ableism and classism was rooted in the desire to point out that, for people in certain circumstances, some forms of AI can be life-changing. We certainly don’t believe those with concerns about AI to be classist or ableist. Not being more careful about our wording was a bad decision on our part.
Remember that NaNoWriMo is a voluntary competition, if for whatever reason you struggle to write a novel in 30 days there is nothing to be ashamed of and no reason to resort to generative AI. Many writers that have cut ties with the organization have provided alternative programs that offer similar services than what NaNoWriMo once provided with accessibility options. If you need those, I urge you to test them out and feel confident in your writing. There are many paths you can take, but generative AI does not need to be one of them. Find your community and fuel your creativity.
How do you feel about this NaNoWriMo controversy? Let us know in the comment section below!
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