It's been a rough few days in NaNo-land.
For those who haven't seen the news yet, NaNoWriMo shot themselves in the foot a few days ago by endorsing (or at least refusing to condemn) using AI tools to write your NaNoWriMo novel (original statement). A lot of us feel like this defeats the purpose of the challenge to write 50,000 words in a month, because if you can just have AI do it, what's the point of challenging yourself?
I think the key words here are challenging yourself.
NaNoWriMo's official statement is vague, and you might note that it doesn't say generative AI. In fact, it doesn't really specify any type of AI tool, of which there are many valid ones, such as grammar checkers, speech-to-text, editing software, and name generators. But I think it's important to note what the statement does not say: It never says you can't use generative AI, and since NaNoWriMo's entire challenge is to write your novel, I think that's important.
It's also noteworthy that while HQ has revised the statement once already, they have not revised it to specify the types of AI they mean, even though they pointed out in an email to author Cass Morris that they didn't say generative AI. Interesting that while they told her that in an email, they didn't bother revising the original statement accordingly, isn't it?
The answer may be found in their sponsorship. As many other sources have already noted, NaNoWriMo is sponsored by ProWritingAid, an AI-based service for writers. I think it's clear HQ didn't want to offend their sponsor with their answer. Unfortunately, they've lost other sponsors since making their statement. Ellipsus stepped down as a NaNoWriMo sponsor, and while Freewrite hasn't made a similar announcement, The Mary Sue noted that Freewrite was no longer a NaNoWriMo sponsor either. And I noticed today that Ninja Writers has dropped off the list of NaNoWriMo's sponsors since last night, too. (For reference, this was the list of sponsors just before the story broke.)
Incidentally, the statement from ProWritingAid in this article makes it sound like they're not too pleased with NaNoWriMo's stance on AI.
As you can imagine from a community of creatives, people are infuriated with NaNoWriMo's stance. As the Literary Hub rightly noted, NaNoWriMo pissed off the whole internet. Several authors have stepped down from NaNoWriMo's writers board in fury. The disability community is furious at the implications that they couldn't write a novel without help. And rumors, possibly driven by a comment from Maureen Johnson, are circulating that NaNoWriMo novels could be stolen for AI training.
To make things worse, this is all following a particularly rough couple of years for NaNoWriMo. A couple of years ago, users realized that one of their sponsors was a predatory self-publishing service. And last year, HQ came under fire for not handling well (or at all) accusations of predatory behavior towards underaged writers on the forums. The latter scandal resulted in the board getting involved.
Whew, I thought. At least that will be handled.
Unfortunately, "handling" it ended up with nearly the entire staff leaving or being let go (no idea which), the former board president stepping down to fill the position of Interim Executive Director, and a complete restructure of the volunteer system that puts 900 local volunteers in charge of their local regions. I understand the need for better checks and balances in the volunteer system, but that felt mishandled too, to the point that we've all been cut loose and are still waiting to be reinstated, less than two months before the start of NaNoWriMo.
In other words, it's pretty safe to say that NaNoWriMo will be run without the help of their Municipal Liaisons this year. And as far as I can tell, HQ is currently a one-woman show, or at least nearly so. The staff page from the website is gone, and to my knowledge we have yet to see any evidence that anyone other than their Interim Executive Director is answering communications.
I've tried to remain optimistic throughout all of this, standing up for HQ even when most other MLs were raging against them. But this last thing, endorsing AI to write your novel, is too much for me. My heart is broken. I've put 9 years of volunteer work and 18 years of writing into NaNoWriMo, and I've always believed in their goals of promoting literacy and encouraging amateur writers. Endorsing AI feels like they've betrayed their non-profit's mission statement and the goals behind their 25-year history.
Their Young Writers Program mission statement reads (emphasis added):
National Novel Writing Month believes in the transformational power of creativity. We provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.
That stings, don't it?
It's not true that our NaNo novels will be used to train AI (NaNoWriMo hasn't required a word count validation in years, and even when they did, it was easy to use a lorem ipsum generator to upload instead). Even ProWritingAid states that their users' work is safe:
For grammar checking, once checking has been completed, all submitted texts and their improvements will be deleted. When using ProWritingAid, your texts will not be used to improve the quality of our services.
Even so, many wrimos (as we tend to call ourselves) no longer feel comfortable aligning ourselves with NaNoWriMo. A lot of participants have already publicly stated that they've deleted their NaNoWriMo accounts. And while I'm hoping the Interim Executive Director will recognize that she's destroyed the organization's credibility and step down as Interim Director before she does any more damage, my fear is that she will instead dig in and try to maintain her untenable position. If she does so, I have no doubt that NaNoWriMo will go down with her.
While NaNoWriMo's future hangs in the balance, many of us are looking for alternatives. I don't want to give up the writing community or the challenge, so I will be looking for ways to continue in an unofficial capacity. More information on that to come!
Update 9/6/2024:
Today NaNoWriMo issued a letter to the community, and revised their statement on AI.
It doesn't change that this was handled badly and that I've lost faith in the organization. The statement actually feels a little condescending, like it's saying, "We didn't know we had to tell you the full story behind our decision." And ultimately, it is not a strong enough retraction to heal the harm done to our community. I think it would have needed to take a position such as "using AI to generate your novel would not be in keeping with the original challenge," even if it only relegated generative AI users to "rebels" instead of followers of the traditional challenge.
Overall, this response from NaNoWriMo feels like too little, too late, and with lots of condescension thrown in.
