A national writers nonprofit is the latest front in the war against generative AI

The war between creatives and advanced generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT has hit the shores of one of the world's most popular communities. A 25-year-old nonprofit, known for its month-long novel-writing challenge dubbed NaNoWriMo, has enraged popular writers and avid participants with its position on using AI for the challenge.

NaNoWriMo says condemning AI is 'classist and ableist'

NaNoWriMo, an acronym for National Novel Writing Month, is an annual 30-day creative writing challenge for participants to write 50,000 words of a novel. Since it began in 1999, the program has attracted novices and expert writers alike. The challenge is an intense sprint towards the first draft of a full-length novel in any genre that now attracts "hundreds of thousands of people around the world," the organization says. Their website "tracks words for writers like Fitbit tracks steps," and volunteers host local events, chat forums and virtual meetups for writers. "Valuing enthusiasm, determination and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel," the nonprofit behind the challenge said. At the end of the process, writers could revise the work and head towards releasing a finished product, either traditionally or through self-publishing. Others simply count it as a personal achievement.

The firestorm against the organization kicked off when it posted a statement  on its website saying that it did not "explicitly support" or "explicitly condemn" any approach to writing, "including the use of AI." NaNoWriMo would "recognize and respect writers who believe that AI tools are right for them." To categorically condemn the use of artificial intelligence "would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology," NaNoWriMo said in the original post, adding that issues around AI usage "tie to questions around privilege." The organization argued that "not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing" and that for some, AI is a practical solution, "not an ideological one."

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"Not all brains have the same abilities, and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing," NaNoWriMo said. "Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals."

Their latest position goes beyond the answer NaNoWriMo provided a year ago when it said writers were welcome to use AI like ChatGPT to "assist your creative process" but that using it to "write your entire novel would defeat the purpose of the challenge."

'Vile, craven, and unconscionable'

After NaNoWriMo posted the statement, it went viral as creatives took to social media to lambast the position. Four members of the nonprofit's writers' board publicly stepped down, including science fiction and fantasy writer Daniel José Older and fantasy writer Cass Morris. One of the organization's sponsors, Ellipsus, which is openly opposed to using generative AI in its products, officially withdrew its sponsorship because NaNoWriMo's statements about AI "antagonizes vs. fosters a constructive dialogue," the founders said. "Most importantly, it overlooks generative AI's largest offense: the wholesale theft of authors' works and a lack of respect for the craft of writing."

Creatives across many industries have been openly taking a stance against large language models that they say are cannibalizing their content. On his Substack, Older called the nonprofits' position on generative AI "vile, craven, and unconscionable." The organization is "harming writers" and "harming the planet," he said. He rebuked the company's follow-up statement that tried "to put distance between what you're talking about and generative AI" and pointed out that another sponsor, ProWritingAid, "is explicitly a Gen AI endeavor." Finally, he condemned their "heinous reconfiguring of language used to fight actual injustices into a shield to cover your transparently business-based posturing" as "unforgivable."

Other writers and long-time NaNoWriMo community members found the assertion that condemning AI was ableist particularly offensive. The organization is "basically asserting that disabled people don't have what it takes to create art when they trot out the lie that scorning AI is ableist," C. L. Polk, author of the Hugo-nominated fantasy series "The Kingston Cycle," who identifies as disabled "along multiple axes," said on Bluesky. "Saying that disabled people need unremarkable and unoriginal writing is a pile of horseshit."