> National Novel Writing Month’s general take on AI is that they don’t want to dismiss AI, because “to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.” In their framing, AI allows everyone to write despite differences in financial abilities, differences in physical and mental ability, and differences in access to resources. Overall they don’t want to stand in the way of new resources that could be useful to writers, explaining that they “see value in sharing resources and information about AI and any emerging technology, issue, or discussion that is relevant to the writing community as a whole,” and adding that “it’s healthy for writers to be curious about what’s new and forthcoming, and what might impact their career space or their pursuit of the craft.”
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> There’s more about their stance on their website, including an update that stresses that “though we find the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic … we are troubled by situational abuse of AI, and that certain situational abuses clearly conflict with our values.” I’d be curious to know which situations are bad and which are good.
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> I think the good faith reading of all this is that the NaNoWriMo organization sees itself as the facilitator of a large community, and wants to be welcoming by keeping its tent as big as possible. Closing their doors to people over definitions of how to write and what tools are okay to use might seem outside of their mission, I would guess, equivalent to insisting all of their participants use blue pens.
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> I’m not sure I buy it. Coincidentally, this all happened over the same long weekend that The New Yorker published Ted Chiang’s excellent piece on why “AI Isn’t Going To Make Art.” I think Chiang’s piece clearly articulates much of what made people so upset at NaNoWriMo, particularly the claims that being against AI is ableist and classist.
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> National Novel Writing Month’s general take on AI is that they don’t want to dismiss AI, because “to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.” In their framing, AI allows everyone to write despite differences in financial abilities, differences in physical and mental ability, and differences in access to resources. Overall they don’t want to stand in the way of new resources that could be useful to writers, explaining that they “see value in sharing resources and information about AI and any emerging technology, issue, or discussion that is relevant to the writing community as a whole,” and adding that “it’s healthy for writers to be curious about what’s new and forthcoming, and what might impact their career space or their pursuit of the craft.”
>
> There’s more about their stance on their website, including an update that stresses that “though we find the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic … we are troubled by situational abuse of AI, and that certain situational abuses clearly conflict with our values.” I’d be curious to know which situations are bad and which are good.
>
> I think the good faith reading of all this is that the NaNoWriMo organization sees itself as the facilitator of a large community, and wants to be welcoming by keeping its tent as big as possible. Closing their doors to people over definitions of how to write and what tools are okay to use might seem outside of their mission, I would guess, equivalent to insisting all of their participants use blue pens.
>
> I’m not sure I buy it. Coincidentally, this all happened over the same long weekend that The New Yorker published Ted Chiang’s excellent piece on why “AI Isn’t Going To Make Art.” I think Chiang’s piece clearly articulates much of what made people so upset at NaNoWriMo, particularly the claims that being against AI is ableist and classist.
I mean who cares about AI?