This would have been my sixteenth straight year writing during NaNoWriMo.

Yesterday, I closed and deleted my NaNoWriMo account. Last night, I literally lost a lot of sleep tossing and turning as I considered what I wanted to say about the reason. Then, I concluded that few, if any, really care about what I do on NaNoWriMo. But I still want to explain.

The NaNoWriMo organization, issued a statement regarding the use of AI. What is NaNoWriMo's position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

First of all, I’m not against anyone using AI as part of the writing process. I am, however, against people using AI and taking ownership/authorship of what the AI wrote. That’s plagiarism.

Second, writing is a creative process that involves a lot of work. Using an AI to write bypasses both the creativity and the work. It’s laziness at its best, cheating at its worst.

But NaNoWriMo claims that people who want to ban AI for writing are ableist and classists Here is a quote, in case the site removes the page:

— Start quote

• Classism. 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.
• Ableism. 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.
• 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.

— End quote

To summarize, this comes down to “leveling the playing field” so everyone can have the same opportunity to “write”. The thing is, you aren’t writing if you use an AI to do it for you. Yes, an AI is a tool, but it is more than a tool such as a keyboard, or pen and paper. It’s an active participant, even in its still-formative stage.

NaNoWriMo’s approach seems to be one of: Not everyone can be a professional mountain climber, so we should level the playing field by leveling the mountain so everyone can climb the mountain. This neither makes you professional nor a mountain climber.

NaNoWriMo’s logic is like saying, if you’re in a race and you can’t run as fast as some of the other runners, you can hop on a bus and cross the finish line to be declared the winner. There’s a reason races ban such tactics. There are also reasons for banning AI in creative endeavors.

Writing is a creative process of work.

Using AI reduces or eliminates both the need for personal growth, creativity and personal work, not to mention eliminating the personal responsibility for what is written.

The NaNoWriMo group has lost its focus. Originally, it was a site to encourage writing. That focus has now shifted to encouraging writing by using AIs to do the work.

And I won’t go into how such encouragement bypasses the ethics of how such AIs are trained.

Feel free to use NaNoWriMo with or without an AI. If you use an AI to create art, that doesn’t make you an artist. Likewise, if you use an AI to write, that doesn’t make you a writer.

The AI is the artist/writer.

I will no longer support or use NaNoWriMo. I can’t support diminishing the effort, creativity, and work of writers and authors.

Flame on!

Write on!