A writing nonprofit’s pro-AI stance is a dramatic plot twist for the creative community

NaNoWriMayhem… The nonprofit behind National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) — a yearly challenge in which half a million writers try to draft the first 50K words of a novel — has stirred up a heated AI controversy. NaNoWriMo said that condemning AI’s use in writing ignores “classist and ableist issues.” It added that AI tools help even the playing — er, typing — field for writers with different educational, cognitive, and financial backgrounds. “Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals,” NaNoWriMo said. There was a ton of backlash from the writing community on social media, plus:

• AI’m out: Four members of NaNoWriMo’s writers’ board publicly stepped down, and many of its 800 volunteers have reportedly left the org, while sponsor Ellipsus severed ties.

• Critics noted that one of NaNoWriMo’s sponsors, ProWritingAid, is an AI writing assistant. NaNoWriMo has promoted ProWritingAid in blog posts as a tool that writers could use to help craft their prose.

Reading between the lines… Many took issue with NaNoWriMo’s stance that criticizing genAI use in writing could be discriminatory and the suggestion that certain writers need AI tools. One NaNoWriMo critic said, “Generative AI empowers not the artist, not the writer, but the tech industry” because AI tools are trained on writers’ content. Last year a group of Pulitzer-winning authors sued OpenAI and its major backer, Microsoft, saying they violated copyrights by training tools with their books. While authors worry AI companies are stealing their work, OpenAI’s said to be raking in $2B annually from 200M weekly ChatGPT users.