It said opposing the tech ignores “classist and ableist” issues.

The organization behind National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is being slammed online after it claimed that opposing the use of AI writing tools is “classist and ableist.” On Saturday, NaNoWriMo published its stance on the technology, announcing that it doesn’t explicitly support or condemn any approach to writing.

“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,” NaNoWriMo said, arguing that “not all brains” have the “same abilities” and that AI tools can reduce the financial burden of hiring human writing assistants.

NaNoWriMo’s annual creative writing event is the organization’s flagship program that challenges participants to create a 50,000-word manuscript every November. Last year, the organization said that it accepts novels written with the help of AI apps like ChatGPT but noted that doing so for the entire submission “would defeat the purpose of the challenge.”

  • Rosoe
    16•14 days ago

    If you have Dyslexia then ChatGPT is a better spellcheck than whatever’s in your writing software. I won’t pretend to know all the applications of AI to help neurodiverse people to write but there are ways to use AI in writing that is very helpful to them. I wouldn’t say having AI blurt out 50,000 words of nothing is particularly helpful to any writer though.

    • AlexanderESmith
      3•14 days ago

      If I had any disorder that kept me from interacting with written words effectively, but I had a burning need to tell a particular story, I would either record an audio book, or ask a friend to help me write it down. I sure as hell wouldn’t trust an LLM with my work.