Issue #42

On today’s quest:

— Why I resigned from the NaNoWriMo writers board
— So. Much. News.

Fiction writers attacked National Novel Writing Month on social media over Labor Day weekend because of the organization’s new statement on AI.

I did not post publicly about it, but I did resign from my position on the NaNoWriMo writers board. Here’s why:

I found nothing wrong with their general stance on AI, which is that writers can do whatever they want:

• "NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI. NaNoWriMo's mission is to 'provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.' We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing."

They should have stopped there. 

What disturbed me was the next, completely unnecessary statement about opposition to AI being classist and ableist:  

• “We believe that 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.”

I am, obviously, not categorically opposed to AI, but I also believe people have legitimate reasons for being opposed that have nothing to do with being classist or ableist. 

In the original statement (which has since had some additions), the part on opposition to AI being classist and ableist made up about half the statement — and I found their arguments to be selective and weird.

For example, it included a bullet point about some writers not being able to afford to hire professionals to get feedback on their writing, which therefore makes opposition to using AI for feedback classist. But getting feedback on your writing isn't something a writer would do during NaNoWriMo. It's an all out writing sprint with the goal of getting any writing, even bad writing, on the page for the sake of moving a project forward.

Maybe they wanted to make a bigger statement about AI beyond NaNoWriMo, but all in all, attacking people who oppose AI as classist and ableist when some of the most militant anti-AI people I've encountered are fiction writers — members of their core constituency — felt like a big unforced error.

Why spend so much time on the “classist and ableist” argument when just as many (if not more) people are opposed because of climate or copyright concerns? And even if they felt especially strongly about that particular objection, they could have been more persuasive by simply highlighting the benefits of AI instead of framing objectors in a negative light.

Further, many NaNoWriMo sponsors this year are AI companies. I’m hesitant to say they were motivated by their sponsors, but for some people wondering why NaNo would go out on a limb like they did, "money" seemed like a plausible answer, and it wasn’t a good look.

Finally, the writers board has been inactive for many years. All they had ever asked me to do was write a blog post once every few years and maybe post something on my social media once a year. I actually had to Google to see if I was still on the board because I knew I had considered resigning before, and I couldn't even remember the last time I interacted with anyone from NaNoWriMo. Although I can't speak for anyone else, from my perspective, being listed as a member of the writers board misrepresented my involvement with the organization.

I still love the organization’s core mission and admire their reach, such as working with schools to get kids writing, and I hope they can continue to be a strong promoter of creative writing.

If you’d like to read more, 404 Media and The Verge have articles on the dust-up.

Quick Hits

After a slow summer, I’m absolutely drowning in interesting AI news again. I plan to start getting out newsletters a bit more often in the next couple of weeks.

News

Google Meet’s AI note-taking feature is here — The Verge

In simulated crime witness interviews, AI was more likely to implant false memories than other interview methods — MIT Media Lab

Google building AI to analyze cough and sneeze sounds to speed diagnoses. The first use seems to be diagnosing tuberculosis in India. — Android Authority

AI in education

Kids who use ChatGPT as a study aid do worse on tests — The Hechinger Report

More art schools teaching AI this fall — ArtNews

Climate

How much water and power does AI computing demand? — Los Angeles Times

AI is taking water from the desert — The Atlantic (gift link)

Think pieces

Why AI isn’t going to make art — The New Yorker

AI is generative, not creative — Alex Reisner

What is AI sidequest?

Using AI isn’t my main job, and it probably isn’t yours either. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and Grammar Girl is my main gig, but I haven’t seen a technology this transformative since the development of the internet, and I want to learn about it. I bet you do too.

So here we are! Sidequesting together.

If you like the newsletter, please share it with a friend.

^{Written by a human.}