Back in the day, I participated in NaNoWriMo, just for the fun of it. I wrote two novels that haven't gone much beyond what I did with the program, and haven't much thought about the site since.
Then I found this video with its understandable righteous indignation about NaNoWriMo embracing the use of artificial intelligence/deep language models in writing.
Obviously, this has caused some consernation in the writing community.
It seems since this video was written the folks at NaNoWriMo have done some backtracking, and I mean a lot of backtracking, as I can't find the post in question on their website.
They don't necessarily condemn the use of AI, however.
That second link says this: "If using AI will assist your creative process, you are welcome to use it. Using ChatGPT to write your entire novel would defeat the purpose of the challenge, though."
So not a ringing endorsement of AI. But they seem to give it a big wink, as long as it "assists" your creative process. How much of an "assist" is allowed? Not the entire novel, it seems. But . . .
Here I am as an English instructor trying to convince students that using artificial intelligence to write their papers is cheating, nothing less. We do not need mixed messages on artificial intelligence use in any writing endeavor.
Good on Ellipsus -- a company I'd not heard of until today -- for backing out of NaNoWriMo sponsorship due to this mess.
I'm also posting this video, which includes a brief but helpful discussion on generative vs. non-generative AI. The generative AI is the problem child.
And while I support the idea of opposing generative AI on the basis of its developers stealing from writers to train it, there's something more fundamental here: When I read a student essay, or a novel, or whatever, I anticipate that a human wrote it. If a robot is writing it -- and right now we can tell, but I suspect it'll get to the point we won't be able to -- I don't want to read it.
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