I've written 35 books. Some are 200k-282k words long, and others are short (for me, 130k). One book took four years. Another took ten years to get right. You heard right. TEN YEARS. I'm not really a fan of AI other than as a spell check. AI, for me, is like a drum machine in the 80's. All the drummers freaked out, but nothing, NOTHING beats the real human experience. I continue to write down what the voice say in my head, without the prompt of a machine. It's worked out pretty well for me so far. :)
Well it is very helpull tu turn my overlong convolutent sentences in manageable ones. I feed small fragments of my text into it and let it rewrite it several times to see, what options I could havet change in my sentences to make them more clear and still have the meaing and details in that are necessary. Also I regularly let AI interpret and comment on my fragments of text - to see it the point I wanted to make in it comes across. The instant detailed feedback make the writing process far more fun and helps me stay motivated - it is as if the page would "respond" to me. But I would never let AI write a text wholly on its own - safe an official mail or drafting an autorisation form for someting - a narrative text witten by a AI seldom goes anywhere near the promper intended.
For years I've heard about nanowrimo from writers who didn't even mention that there was some kind of organization attached to the challenge. And I've already tried the challenge twice without even knowing that the nonprofit existed. So this year I'll be trying it again. For myself, as a motivation tool, not for them.
Well, there you go. I’m finished with NanoWriMo. Second, I’m truly getting tired of all of this equality/equity arguments. It just sounds like people whining all the time. Great artists do come from harsh backgrounds, and their struggles are what makes the intriguing story and the great art.
You're finished how? lol. You've done and submitted your ready story? Or you're leaving as a result of this? I'll give you the former. The latter, that's giving up.
My thinking on AI is that there are certain tools which have been generally accepted by authors for a long time; if you are using AI to replace those tools, such as a dictionary, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia, etc., then there’s no problem. However, having AI write for you removes your integrity as an author. You remove your own voice and deprive the world of a fresh perspective.
If you aren't using AI to aid in line editing, you are handicapping yourself. For instance, take a paragraph you wrote. Insert it into ChatGPT. Ask to edit and polish your paragraph... maintaining the prose and tone... and write 5 different variations for your analysis. It is revolutionary and if you are hellbent on sending an real editor slop, that's your choice.
@@eternal_napalm6442I won’t lie I have done that a few times. I’m not completely comfortable doing it cause I feel like it doesn’t help me to grow as a writer if I can’t trim the fact so to speak. Honestly I like ai…it’s been a great tool for me. I’m not for using it to right but damn has it been great for brain storming.
@@eternal_napalm6442 Or because I'm actually good at writing, I chose the exact words and word order I wanted so I don't need an algorithm to randomize it for me. It's already how I want it. If you write slop, that's a skill issue and you should work to improve it instead of making a an algorithm do it for you
As someone who came up extremely poor, it's bizarre entering the middle class and seeing so many "disabled" people in it who can't do something like write. I work as a SPED educator and see mild to severe cases of learning disabilities and communication disorders and we use technology to better the quality of life for these students and then I encounter people in my degree program who live very comfortable lives who then tell me it's "ableist" to expect them to write a paper without AI. I didn't know it was expanding towards NaNoWriMo.
Like everything else, writing for the most case is not something that everyone is born talented with. Many needs teachers to help them learning, and then there are people who still have a hard time learning even after receiving the assistance of teachers. I can't tell you how many times I have a facepalm moment over seeing how dumb people are in logic and reading comprehension. But then I always remember that analytical thinking and language comprehension is just simply the talent that I'm born with, while being so average at things like sport...and writing. I'm even suck at writing a letter myself. I think people just need to realize more that none of them are the perfect standard of how everyone else had to be as well. Otherwise we would all be Einstein, Mohammed Ali, and Leonardo Da Vinci at the same time.
@Naradan2.0 If I am not good a sports, dont have a natural talent for it and yet want to pursue a hobby or even a career in the field, what am I to do? Train. Not dope myself because "it's the only way i can compete and i am by default inferior to others" Writing is a creative process. Not everyone is shakespeare. You do not have to be shakespeare to write. It's art. It's a creative project. Everyone can be creative. It's a matter of expressing yourself Using AI is the antithesis to self-expression, which you replace with the reformulated work of others, which the AI tool has delievered to you. AI is awesome and I use it very often. It just keeps getting better. But we must learn restraint as a people with this new technology. In this modern culture of consumerism and fast paced everything, "I wanna learn everything as fast as possible and do everything ws fast as possible" without much thought put into it, people are sacrificing their own self expression, one of the greatests gifts in life.
@@miguelpadeiro762 so, you're telling me that every football players had to either learn how to make their own football fields or rent one to train, and never to use free empty fields beside their house, or don't play football at all? So now athletes also shouldn't run on the street for stamina training, because it's free? Because that's basically what you're telling writers to do if they can't edit and proofread themselves, either pay or don't write at all, no free tools allowed. Since learning proper form of language requires money for most, so basically pay or pay unless you can get the attention of publishing house that would give you their editors. Do you realize how gatekeeping and unreasonable you're there? Am I right to assume that you're a professional editor and proofreader, or something similar?
@@miguelpadeiro762 btw, I never said people should write their whole novels using AI at all. I'm saying that people should be allowed to use AI tool for editing and proofreading. I also thinks that using AI tool for research purpose and overcoming writer's block should be okay. The very idea that if you don't have money to buy professional service or learn to do it yourself, then you shouldn't do anything that requires that specific skill at all, is very disturbing and anti-progress to me.
It sounds like they're saying , "Just participate in our thing. We really dont care if you use AI to write some or all of it. But if you do its probably because you're disadvantaged. Just write so we can take partial credit."
This is so bizarre. It feels like its saying "Because you struggle with coming up with a plot, creating compelling characters, describing a scene, and writing a book, you should be able to us AI." So basically, if you're not good at being a writer, you should be able to use AI to level the playing field with those who are good writers. I don't know if you can "cheat" when it comes to writing, but this kind of feels like it.
When I first read the story "Harrison Bergeron" decades ago, I naively thought it was a ridiculous premise. Now I it's obvious that Vonnegut was prescient.
I tried Ai to see what the hubbub was about. The output was absolute garbage when left to its own device. I still don’t understand why anyone thinks Ai could be a standalone substitute for quality creative writing. The Ai user STILL has to have a writing skillset and a creative mind for good results and to know what that means. The user STILL has to do a ton of work and guide it in the right direction for a quality read in the end. It’s sort of like Photoshop… anyone can use it, but not everyone has the creative vision and talent to use it well. IMO, Ai is just a tool for the author to use to simplify certain processes, but it could never take the place of the human mind and its creative genius. As for NaNoWriMo….if someone wants to write their garbage novel with Ai and give themselves a pat on the back without actually doing the work to meet the challenge…? It’s their own personal crappy choice and they are only hurting themselves in the end. People need to calm down because there are far worse things in the world to worry about.
I don't think any serious authors are actually trying to use AI to write their books. Sure, there's some low-content hacks out there trying, inspired by the get rich quick schemes that RUclipsr's are pushing to get views. Those make me laugh. Authors and rich are two words that have nothing in common. You'd make more money starting a bad garage band than trying to start off as an author. The authors, like myself, that use AI in our writing use it to accelerate and improve our writing experience. Much of the author community has a misperception that people are telling AI "hey, write a book about this." That couldn't be further from the truth. If they did, they'd get a mountain of trash. I'd suggest checking out author specific software that is designed with the author in mind, that just happens to have AI support. Software like NovelCrafter. If you are properly populating the codex and filling out all of the scene beats yourself, and only then, when the AI has a very narrow set of instructions and is only allowed to write a couple of hundred words, do you let it go. Most of the time it's still crap, but it's crap that you can edit in your second draft. My goal in using AI is to get to the second draft as quickly as possible. You don't do editing in the first draft because your editor is likely to tell you to rewrite quite a bit anyway. Cleanup comes after developmental editing. If you do use AI though, it's important to maintain your integrity and do plagiarism checks for any original thought that the AI comes up with (usually it's just little things like jokes since you've restricted it so much.)
@@BruceWayne15325 Precisely, I am not good at rote writing, and frankly I don't enjoy the "writing" part of writing a story. I like being creative. Worldbuilding, character creation, outlining, etc. The "writing" is just work. There are only so many ways you can assemble words in order to tell a story. If I paid a ghost writer to sit and do the stuff I don't like doing, according to these people that's fine. I do the same with an AI, somehow that's wrong. It's hypocritical. I am still the one giving it all the ideas and information. I am the one directing every single thing it writes. I am the one proofreading and correcting the countless mistakes, tangents, jumping ahead in the story, etc that it constantly makes. I am babysitting the AI every step of the way. What I'm not doing is sitting at a blank text doc trying to decide what to write. I'm not worrying about how to say things, or what characters should be saying. I am letting the AI knock out a couple hundred words, then checking it over to see if I like it, then editing and adding as I go. It is EXTREMELY liberating. If people want to spend years slogging through trying to write a book, go for it. I'd rather use AI to keep things moving and finish a book in a few months. The anti-ai nonsense is pretentious snobbery. Nothing else.
@@acidhedzgamez1867 well I think most of the anger comes from a lack of understanding about the technology. People have the impression that pseudo-authors are telling AI "make this book for me" and it does it. That's simply not the case... or at least if anyone is dumb enough to try that they aren't getting any sales. Being an author is a lot of work, far beyond simply writing. Writing is actually the easy part. Even with AI, it takes me about a month or two to write the book. But then I have to go through the editorial gauntlet, because let's face it. AI writing is absolutely terrible, even the best models like Sonnet 3.5 are not producing prose that anyone would want to read. I don't look at this as a huge problem though since AI still saves me time in that I can get to the developmental edit that much faster. The editor will typically request major changes that will require a massive amount of rewriting anyway. I don't typically use AI much once I've reached the developmental editing stage. From that point on, it's me fixing up the novel, rewriting it with my voice and style, cleaning up the scenes to be sure that the conflict pops, etc. The editorial process still takes months and months. AI is a great boon, but it's by no means a replacement for authors or editors. A good book isn't written, it's edited and polished. Even if you're writing with AI (actually, especially if you're writing with AI) you have months and months of editing ahead of you when you finally finish "writing" to turn your mountain of garbage into something beautiful that people want to actually read.
@@BruceWayne15325 I use Sudowrite, it allows me to tell the AI how I want it to write, so I've never had much of a problem with the prose. Besides, considering that a lot of books that are very popular, are not considered to have very good prose, I'm not that worried about it.
Wait. Did the NaNoWriMo team say that underrepresented authors may *need* to use AI because they're underrepresented? Meaning, their work won't be good enough if they did the work themselves? And that they'd fail in the indie space? Indie publishing is where anyone can shine if they put in the effort and get creative with marketing.
There is literally publishing houses dedicated to minorities now! They have a much better chance than they did twenty years ago. Not to mention I've read some excellent indie published works. The method of publication doesn't necessarily mean quality..... NAMOWRIMO has a lot it needs to address. The implications are heartbreaking.
It's like they're weaponizing minority identities to continue pushing AI. Like, I'm a minority author, and the major obstructions to us are how little free time we get to write and explore art as compared to middle class white authors, how much access we get to literature when we don't get libraries funded. AI is like putting a bandaid on generations of historical racism.
@@marthawest6717 It's an advanced case of foisting learned helplessness and demoralization onto the crowd. In short, Idiocracy. Pass the Brawndo--this might take a minute to fully assimilate.
They're basically saying that the use of AI tools for editing and proofreading shouldn't be opposed. What underrepresented writers that had to go the indie route needs the most are editors and proofreaders, not ghost writers. When a writer is represented by a literary company, they will get in-house editors and proofreaders for free. For indie writers, they had to either pay to hire editor and proofreader themselves, or use AI tools. For editing and proofreading, most AI tools can be used for free.
I am currently taking a class on LLMs at my local library. Fascinating. The lecturer suggested giving all 6 the same prompt and to compare the results. Claude told me off: "This is not what I do." Meta told me I didn't give it enough information, ChatGPT and Perplexity rephrased my question in paragraph form, and the two remaining suggested I look elsewhere (ancestry research, genealogy at local library) for answers. Most did, however, conclude that the person I am researching is "unimportant" and/or "not historically relevant." I can't wait to find out more at my local library. :)
I did NaNoWriMo last year all on my own. My goal was not to write a book in a month, but to build better writing habits and push myself on the book I had already made some progress on. My daily goal was 500 words. By the end of the month, I had essentially doubled my current draft's length, and I came out of it with a renewed sense of drive and habits that helped me finish my book by March. So yes, there is absolutely no need to participate officially. Just set a goal and watch your writing habits change for the better!
NaNoWriMo is entirely on the honor system. If you write, "I like to write stories." 10,000 times that would be a legitimate win and a boring read. Being on the honor system you could score a win just by logging in every day and updating your word count without actually writing anything. Nobody could tell if you wrote anything or not. So I'm not worried about whether someone is using AI. Even I have an AI spell-check nagging that my names don't match the expected English vocabulary.
Exactly, that’s why it’s so odd that they went out of there way to write such a badly crafted post deliberately defending AI usage in their competition despite all of the theft issues. With them having a generative AI sponsor with subscription services and costs up to $700, their leader wrote this on their own without consulting anyone and managed to make everyone angry with how they did it, except the AI tech supporters who were happy that their weak classist, ableist arguments were utilized by a once very respected organization.
While I have little fear about AI replacing genuine writing, as an aspiring editor, it concerns me how many people are defending the use of AI in editing. We have to stand up to it before it becomes a genuine threat. People forget that there are other and better tools out there without it. Let's not forget the advantage of human editors: they can catch your vision for the story and help you get there. They can tell you how readers are likely to experience it and help your story come across the way you want it to. It's not all about grammar.
Where I'm at, my local ML has actually resigned. In light of the incident last year, they cracked down hard on expectations and were expecting people to essentially do jobs for more than half the year (around the months of Nano, and Camp Nano) for free. My former ML (whom I am friends with) just couldn't do it. In my writer's group, we all work full time jobs, as well as write. There's no time for an additional unpaid job in the meantime, with no benefit or perks whatsoever. I don't use AI tools myself, but have some friends who do. Especially to help them in beginning to track down comparable titles that they can then go forward to read! There are certainly advantages to using it in specific instances, but generative leaves such a bad taste... I do wish the Nano team were more clear on what tools they were speaking of. My local group was planning to do a 'spirit of nano' without it being formal kind of challenge anyway, and this just solidifies that decision. I really appreciate your take and information on this. Thank you!
AI is really helpful for editing but that is where it should come to a stop. Use it to make sure your commas are used properly and you don't have double spaces where one will do. The content should be all human in my opinion. The details of grammar can be touched up with AI ethically.
i actually find searching for certain things, even restaurants or locations much more difficult. idk if it's just google, might have to switch search engine.
ChatGPT is good for running simulations of reading groups who are reading your work. It isn't a very good writer though. Grammarly is a great option for editing though. At least, for the grammatical aspects. I think AI is appropriate as a limited tool to polish things up but shouldn't be used for the actual foundation production side.
I use Grammarly, and so far, I’m not very satisfied with it. It struggles to understand jokes, sarcasm, references, and the unique creative voice a writer brings to their work. As a result, it often makes my writing feel less human and more generic. And let’s not even get started on the 'raise impact' feature-it almost always flags something in the text as 'offensive language' and then refuses to work. What’s even more frustrating is that it doesn’t tell me which part of the text is problematic or why it’s being flagged.
@lunafencoven For sure. I've found that each type of software has a very specific use. I wouldn't recommend Grammarly for context improvement at all. It is decent for sentence structure and grammar. Any other use is going to pull your writing into a generic pool.
I use AI in my writing as a tool. I handwrote my manuscript and being a slow typer...typist? typerer?...I would just dictate each chapter into google docs and use AI to look for certain things....as an example, I would have them list all the names in the chapter. I know who should be there, but if the dictation robot misheard me, it could have changed a name. Like changing Lor to Laura. I use it for basic editing and when I get it tight enough, I'll hire someone to do my main copy edit. The more I can get it polished before I send it to a service that I (rightfully) have to pay for, the cheaper it may be on me in the long run. It should never write the story.
for me this sounds no different than the typical grammar\spelling tools that most document programs use. The autocorrect feature is probably what gets the names wrong since it may not recognize Lor as being a real name.
Very few people have issues with non generative AI. That is where the arguments happen. Accessibility Assistance is getting classified as "AI" and getting lumped in with Generative AI that takes a 20 word prompt and turns it into a 2500 word chapter.
@@Belthazar1113 see i dont even know what you said. I have no idea what any of that means 😂. Imo, AI is like any other invention its there for ease of process but it can never truly replace human creativity bc it cannot function without a human being. And im pretty sure humans are amart enough to know a book is AI generated. There are telltale signs
They aren't saying AI is the solution to these problems. They explicitly don't promote or condemn any specific technique. It's just that for writers who do view AI as the solution to their problems, NaNoWriMo doesn't condemn them.
Yeah, but I don't want to compete against someone using performance enhancing drugs if I'm an athlete, and I want the sports governing body of my sport to take a firm stance against it. Right? Drug tests and all that. I also don't want to compete against someone who is simply using AI to write 50,000 somewhat coherent words in order to try to win a contest against people who have actually used their writing skills (that they have worked hard to develop) to write their own stories. Not saying people shouldn't be allowed to use AI to write. But they shouldn't use AI in a contest environment. I mean, what would be the point of the Nobel, Booker, or Pulitzer prizes if it turns out all the authors winning those prestigious awards were using AI to draft their stories?
@@brindlebucker4741 NaNoWriMo isn't a competition. The only prize is the satisfaction of having completed a novel. Anyone can cheat and submit a novel they've spent years on. There are no safeguards against cheating because you don't even win anything anyway. I agree that for whatever competition there is, if there are AI rules then participants should adhere to them.
@@BidwellRunner No, but trying to get books published is. If a publishing company can just use AI to get new books written, why bother getting an author. It can just "read" past stories and blend together a new story. That is what authors are competing against.
i personally am using ai (by that i mean chat gpt) to do things like research for my novel, and as a way to check my first draft for any plot issues or grammer issues while writing. it also just feels good to be able to discuss different ideas and approaches that i wouldn't go and ask someone about. for example: i was thinking what the mortality rate should be in my stories main group. so the ai gave me some similar books and told me what the mortality rate is in those. and then i chose based off the book that i felt had the most believable but not heartbreaking amount of deaths. its also great for keeping track of my word count and telling me what amount of words i should aim to have in each chapter etc. and it points out sections where i could write better... chat gpt realy helped me start, it made a lot of stuff easier and more simple. its still my story that im writing from start to finish, but it definetly helps to have an ai to consult with.
I also use it for brainstorming. You shouldn't use AI to write your book for you because you'll end up with boring and repetitive writing. Instead, you may use it as a tool to help you find the words you need to say what you intend to say. AI has sped up my writing process so much.
That ableism thing really got under my skin. There are plenty of solutions to problems disabled writers face that have nothing to do with AI and it's like some of these people don't even want to try.
That "classism"/"ableism" argument is such a cop-out, and pretty insulting to poor/disabled writers. If you need generative AI to help "improve" your writing, then you were never built for the craft in the first place. Like Alyssa said, writing is free, and talent and hard work knows no class boundaries.
I agree. I swear the only people going on diatribes about "ableism" and "classism" are the ones who know [or at least believe] they don't have any talent and need some kind of cheat to get up on the pedestal. You know like how a lot of amateur artists just copy anime styles and insist "it's their style".
Ai is actually really great. Blanket anti-ai stances like that are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The biggest thing you lose when ai is used by people is the "permission" from society to feel that toxic superiority you get from being more successful than other human beings. It's intoxicating, necessary for evolution, but also very immature. It's more mature to allow ai and humble humanity not to be so special, and at the same time, being ok with that. Not getting depressed because other possible beings can be better than us would be a true test of humanity's capacity for grace. Sadly, we all start from 0%, and everybody must make the mistakes of their ancestors. I can't force you to be more mature, I can only invite you to be.
@@dmitryalexandersamoilov "Ai is actually really great" said no real writer ever. If you actually think any kind of generative AI can produce writing better than a human's you should never be anywhere near a keyboard.
@@absolutelycitron1580 That's not what I was saying though. I said that talent knows no class boundaries, not that untalented people can get ahead because they have the resources to. That's a completely different argument.
I am a tech guy. AI fascinates me, and the facets that it provides across many industries is incredible. I also just recently finished the rough draft of my novel, using AI. Now, I did not generate content directly using AI, I actually used it periodically for feedback, to get a glimpse at what objectively is and isn’t working. It doesn’t work. When you ask an AI model to generate or evaluate a piece of work, it does a couple things: 1. It synthesizes a voice based on a series of factors, like other creative works. While this might give a general idea of how something could be rewritten, it is incapable of replicating your voice and style specifically. Additionally, it switches its voice style with every prompt you feed it, unless you are extremely meticulous about the prompts you feed it. 2. When evaluating text quality, not only does it evaluate from the skewed lens mentioned above, but it then takes deeper context to evaluate based on specific facets of creative writing, which then requires the model to emulate another creative voice to compare it to. This means you can get an evaluation from the same model ranging from an A to a D, simply based on the contextual factors it has to fill in. Not reliable feedback. Now, what it HAS done well for me and for those who like the idea of supportive AI- 1. Ideas. If you are in a rough spot in your book and you need recommendations for how your character might escape or embrace a scenario, asking for ambiguous ideas is a great way to crack through writers block. 2. Expanding vocabulary. If you ask AI to rewrite your work, it will mechanically and methodically pick apart and rewire the text in a way that pulls your own voice out of the work. However, one thing it’s good about doing is using powerful and compelling words and imagery to invoke a scene that you may not have considered here before. So in a couple places I asked for rewrites, and then cherry-picked the words and wove them into the text without damaging voice, which immediately strengthened the emotional impact. 3. Objective text analysis. This is specifically tools like Marlowe, that objectively analyze the text and tell you information about the book, rather than try to understand it on a human level. This style of objectivity, rather than taking a computers emotional evaluation as gospel, should be the approach you take if you plan to use AI to assist with writing, because only people can read your work and feel something from it.
They're correct, though they should have been more specific about the general types of AI assistance they approve or disapprove of. Saying everyone has equal access to writing "because I did it" is exactly the classism they're referring to. When they say ableism and disabilities, they're not talking about people in wheelchairs. They're talking about certain types of neurodivergence that make it very difficult to perform certain tasks in the writing process that others can do easily. Some of those people have enough money and resources to pay to overcome those obstacles. Others can't. "What," I hear you asking, "did they do before modern tools like AI?" They started Nanowrimo, got really frustrated, and gave up on writing. I know it's hard to believe, but there are one or two people who didn't finish Nanowrimo. Also, I'm an editor myself, and eventually my job will be mostly eliminated by AI tools (though I do mostly scientific work so it'll probably be among the last to fall to AI). However, the reality is that most writers can't afford a human editor for everything they write, and those are the people who stand to benefit the most from AI assistance.
I'm dyslexic and have other noralogicalI issues. I use AI to help with spelling, sentence structure, listening to what I have written, and on the rare occasion if a paragraph just doesn't sound right, I ask AI for options on how to rewright that paragraph. Sometimes, choosing from more than one suggestion and rearranging the paragraph the way I think it sounds best. It's only that paragraph, not the whole story. What I'm trying to say is I use AI as the tool it should be. Not just let it write the story. That would defeat the whole point of writing a story in the first place.
I'm stunned that this AI thing is what's doing it rather than 2023 NaNoWriMo moderator child grooming controversy. Really, writers? You're upset that NaNo said if people want to use AI that's Okay (as if they could track this or stop it), but not about a moderator allowed to stay on when they were being inappropriate with minors? Hell, if someone wants to use AI to complete NaNoWriMo, what does it hurt anyone else? Just write your books (away from NaNo, preferably) and don't worry about what other people are doing. AI writes terrible fiction, anyway. I just feel that people are getting worked up about the wrong thing.
Dang, I should have read the comments before posting because I just literally wrote the same sentiment! It's a bit disconcerting where the line has been drawn.
What troubles me most about AI writing tools and their massive adoption is how terrified people are of writing, of just saying the thing in their own words and being okay with it. Everyone feels that what they have to say and how they say just isn't good enough. That's it's gotta be made fancier. I would rather read a human account of something that is genuine and heartfelt and personal, with all of its grammatical warts and wrinkled syntax, than a robot's well-polished imitation. There's a Hemingway story that starts: "That night we lay on the floor in the room and I listened to the silk-worms eating. The silk-worms fed in racks of mulberry leaves and all night you could hear them eating and a dropping sound in the leaves." What I've always loved about that description is Hem could not have written such a thing unless he'd actually experienced it. I had no idea you could hear silk-worms eating and that they'd occasionally fall down through the leaves. This is the advantage that humans have over AI: AI doesn't live in the real world. It won't ever find itself sleep under racks of mulberry leaves while silk-worms spin above them. It can't sit on some lonely cliff and paint the unique landscape laid out in front of it. At best, it can only steal the work of the real humans that experienced those things and then wrote about them...or painted them...or sang about them.
I'm from Kenya. I'm teaching myself fiction and AI is my feedback thing. I'm improving because of it. Instead of paying a human editor I'm using AI. (Developmental, word choice, descriptions, etc.) You say there are other ways of getting feedback for free. Nano does not dispute that. But why not AI? It's the quickest. This is not theory/hypothetical. I'm part of what that Nano statement is describing. So you can imagine what I think about wholesale condemnation of AI as a technology in my case.
You don't have friends who would be willing to read your work? No access to online writing groups to get peer feedback? No experience reading other books to see what works well for you in those books and then trying to replicate it yourself? In addition to writing, I do fiber arts. If there was a machine that I could prompt with what I wanted and have it do it for me, I wouldn't use it because the whole point of my art is to make it. AI might give faster feedback, but it isn't engaging with your work on a human level. It's doing a mathematical analysis. Output isn't the measure of success. Look at Tolkien. He had very little published during his lifetime in comparison to his whole body of ideas but he's still considered foundational to his genre. Writing one book that came from your craft is more worthy than writing ten books that a math equation told you how to improve by comparing your words to other people's words using only math.
It might be interesting for NANOWRIMO to do a sort of "John Henry against the Machine" competition, a year where they split the competition into two categories: RAW (no AI assistance whatsoever), and ASSISTED (Authors who use some form of AI in writing their drafts). Then, after they choose a winner from each category, have a "Runoff" where they have a panel of experts (whoever they are) pick ONE winner. The problem with totally banning all AI is that now, nearly EVERY SINGLE TOOL you use has incorporated some form of AI.. this includes Grammarly, ProWrite, Fictionary, WORD, Scrivner, etc. etc. AI is becoming almost impossible to avoid, unless you unplug all devices and go back to a typewriter or pen and paper.
I have my word processor, Wordperfect, that's all. It's all anyone needs to write. I avoid using anything else. When most of these things came out, my thought was "Isn't it the writer's job to learn this stuff?"
@@adamhenrysears3288 WORDPERFECT??? Wow, the best word processing software ever made. Had no idea it was even still in existence, I loved that program. What kind of word processor do you have?
From the Borlest website: "...However, we’ve made sure to make them available to you. From the secret rituals and techniques used by Jews to manifest money, to the hidden hacks for making money online used by today’s business gurus. You’ll also discover the universal laws of the universe known only to the elite at the top of the pyramid, and much more..." What kind of 4chan garbage is being peddled here?
I draw the line at AI writing the book. I don't see any issues with writers getting help from AI tools. I mean, why pay someone to spot a basic/silly grammar error (we all make them) when even the free AI tools can do it as your writing? I can even give them limited use of generative AI. Sometimes the brain pan is just fried and you need a little help figuring out how to phrase something. or use it as a placeholder while you keep working on the rest of the book. Like all other tech, there are legitimate times and places to use AI. If you don't support the use of AI, just don't read the books that use it.
When I joined them years ago, it was a great place. I was looking for a place to find community after my fiancé died (sad fact, you find your social circle shrinks significantly after the death of a partner). And I found camaraderie and belonging again. I got my first completed novel idea as a result of a NaNo plot bunny. I even met several of my closest friends as a result. A few years ago, it started becoming a toxic echo chamber. I quickly found myself on the wrong side of several arguments through no fault of my own and even harassed for my works as toxic...even though my books had been previously accepted. I even got admonished by mods more than once. I brought up the problem to the higher ups and got pooh-poohed. The harassment got so severe that I left. It's heartbreaking, honestly. But I'm not surprised that's now their stance. They were so focused on being so welcoming that they left the proverbial back door open.
Their argument is, if I’m not as strong as the world’s strongest man, then I can use a forklift. Everything has to be fair. People aren’t allowed to be better and yet they’re hosting a contest.
Some of the greatest works in history, whether writing or something else, have been built from the cracked hands of struggling peasants. Making the pathway easier won't put more heart and soul into work. Instead, we will see a flood of mediocre books and artworks filling every crevice of the market and making it harder for the true gems to come to the surface. My mom reads 3 novels per week on average. It has gotten more difficult for her to find quality in the endless sea of self-published garbage. She does find some exceptional and brilliant indie authors, but it takes some swimming through the swamps to get to the clear and clean water.
It’s ridiculous how some people believe AI could be stopped. I agree, it’s disconcerting and something new and frightening. Please don’t just write your whole novels using AI. But who honestly thinks AI can be stopped? That horse has bolted.
NaNoWriMo is taking the right approach here for what the organization is. Their mission is to encourage folks to write. That's it. Nothing more. If folks use AI, their evil twin, or just make up the fact that they wrote stuff ... Caring much about that is outside of their bailiwick. They also note that they have no idea where this world is going. Anyway. People will get upset with whatever position the organization takes. This position is about as "we take no position" as you can get. :)
There is an ableism component to AI. I’ve made this argument for illustration too, as I am both a writer and artist. The issue I have is using it as a finished work, rather than part of your ideation or research process. Personally, I use it as a tool to get over anxiety and neurodivergence. I don’t use it write but I use it to help organize my thoughts and act as an interactive smarthub. Their arguments makes sense but they weren’t clear enough in condemning the elephant in the room.
Something to be considered... generative AI cannot be copywritten. So if you choose to use generative AI in your writing process you cannot copyright the work. Many publishers won't work with you if you use it. You can self- publish but you still won't be able to copyright it.
Are you saying that all deaf people are capable of doing what Beethoven did? Exactly. People need to stop thinking that how talented one person born to be as a standard on how talented everyone else had to be born as. You and I can't do what Beethoven do, deaf or not deaf. What they mean by classist and ableist is barring people like us from creating something as good as Beethoven with help from tools. If you think more calmly about it, it is indeed classist and ableist way of thinking. Also btw, they're talking about using AI for editing and prrofereading, not for the writing part of it. It's very apparent on their wording of it, despite not being clearly specified. I'm honestly baffled that some supposed professionals at writing companies failed to see it.
Beethoven wasn't born deaf. He became deaf due to an illness as he got older. He wrote pieces while deaf, but would use a pencil pressed against the piano and in his mouth to go through each note.
@@FalloutUrMum exactly my point. Beethoven didn't born deaf, but he's born with high talent in musical comprehension. Anyone who thinks that just about anyone can learn to be as good as Beethoven are delusional. To reach the height Beethoven, we need both talent and hard work. No amount of hard work will get anyone to Beethoven's height of musical sense, if they don't have talent for it. You have no idea how many of my friends work really hard learning foreign language, and still got 7 or 8 out of 10...while I get 10/10 by lazing around. Yes, I'm rather talented in language comprehension, I'm very naturally capable in that area. Talent matters...and I'm not about to tell my friends who struggles with foreign languages despite their genuine hard work to not use translators for their job. That's why, I firmly believe that we shouldn't tell people not to use AI tool to do editor and proofreader job, when they're underrepresented and had no money to hire human for the job.
@@Naradan2.0 You can do what Beethoven did though, all the evidence shows you just need to grind from a very young age. I'll attach links to the research.
Best thing to do when someone doesn't list a specific reason not to or to use something, assume the more moral option as their intention. So if they weren't specific about which Ai (I write it this way to not confuse it with "AL", since a capital "i" looks like a lower case "l"), and there are two types, assume they are talking about the helpful Ai tools rather than the cheating generative Ai programs. Since one type makes human creativity easier and the other doesn't use a human element in it's creation, it is easy to see which one a judging platform would side with.
Question; let’s say I wrote a novel on my own but I needed to erase thousands of words to cut the word count down. Can I use AI as a prompt to erase words. Keep in mind that when you ask it to erase thousands of words, it sometimes changes some words around. Is that allowed?
@@Justafox305 I would ask it to suggest and mark where it should remove, instead of allowing it to do so. I would also have it explain why. On the paid version of GPT, you can upload documents, so you can also have it reference the page number so you can determine for yourself if you agree.
Thank you for posting! It feels like NaNo is saying in subtext that less advantaged people can't write good books. Okay, almost none of us write good books in first draft--but AI can't fix that. Connecting with other writers and readers later does.
During a past NaNoWriMo one participant bragged they'd done something like 1.6 million words. They did it by daily copy/pasting text from random web pages into a single Word document. Then claiming that document was their effort for that November. Completely misses the point. NaNoWriMo has always been about writing your own words---not editing, compiling, or whatever. *Your words, produce them.* Bullet point @8:02 First, what does this have to do with producing words? Second, many times I've seen agents stating they wanted submissions from persons of color (although not exclusively). This bullet point is clear discrimination against minorities because it implies they are too child-like, too stupid, or too poor to get published.
Please note AI is in its infancy, it will displace many occupations including authors and screen writers. Not a new phenomena, but one that might make for a great storyline. Sounds like a great outline for November!
Thanks for the clarity, Alyssa. I think this highlights something important for writers, which is to remember no two of us sit down to work with the same resources or tools. A writer who doesn't use ChatGPT, might be using a spouse or assistant to help them research, bounce ideas off of, or read their work. No one asks a writer if their husband helped them with their manuscript, but the hysteria over AI is real. Perhaps _Doctor Who_ and those scary Daleks are to blame.
Why are you robbing yourself of the opportunity of learning or improvement? You might as well not even write, because it's not you writing if you're having something write for you. Creating anything is a process that takes effort, it's not hysteria to dislike laziness because it's causing people like you to get selfish and lazy and to essentially steal the work's of others (Where do you think those data bases that AI pulls from come from?). No one wants to read something a machine made, or view any form of media that a machine made. You can't even call that work your work.
I'm of the opinion that using AI to create a first draft is perfectly fine so long as you provide it with good direction. I've used it to write a few novels now and even with good careful direction, the prose it produces can be rather mechanical at times. Then at other times, it can be pretty outstanding. That being said it can never replace the human elements that need to go into a good story. Thus the author needs to absolutely edit the prose heavily and multiple times until it's polished out just like any other book. It needs to go through at least two to three rereads and rounds of edits before you even can consider submitting it to an agent or a publisher, and even then just like any other book, it should get even more edits. AI writing is a good tool, but it's honestly one that does get abused a lot by the average person who is just trying to get into the writing field. Ad that is what is hurting its reputation. Perhaps instead of trying to stone-wall AI writers, teach them how to take that generated content and edit it into something original. As a side note here, I think the whole notion of getting angry that AI is being taught with other people's work is ridiculous. When an artist is learning how to create art, they study other artists and try to copy them. It's considered an accepted learning technique to try to forge another artist's work flawlessly to learn how to do it yourself. The same goes for writing. When I wrote my first book, I thought first about who I wanted to write like, then I went and studied their writing style and emulated their exact style. No one taught me how to write, I had to teach myself, and I did it by copying other authors. And I'm willing to bet good money that almost every single author has done the exact same thing when they first started writing, and may even still do it to this day. So getting on AI's case for literally doing the same thing, is extremely hypocritical. But again, instead of being Karens about AI writing, which we should all accept isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future, Teaching others how to use it responsibly might be a better long-term plan than getting angry about it.
As a welder, the closest trade in my opinion to an art. I work within sight of welding robots. You can't stand in the way of progress. I had to meld my art with the automation.
my question is how will human writers prove that they wrote something going forward as ai continues to improve there are already AI tools to humanize AI writing how can humans prove that they created and wrote their book without there being a way to prove that a book was written by a human, there won't be any way to keep AI out of the space I'm not saying it's impossible and that it's a lost cause for humans to try to curate human work and to keep it separate from AI generated work I'm just thinking out loud about whether or not it's possible and if it is what does it look like I'm 100% for a seal of approval for human writing but I just don't know how we get there from here now that AI is out of the bag - again assuming that AI will only continue to improve
What are your thoughts on authors working on their drafts live on a live stream? With the actual document on screen showing their words being written down as they type them. Artists do full pieces from original sketch to a final product on live streams. Maybe authors should consider doing the same. One gripe could be that writers don't want their ideas being stolen. But with how copyright works, at least in America, the second you write something down it's considered as a copyright and protected from plagiarism. You can also make a separate recording of the stream just to be safe. A lot of writers will probably think it's a crazy idea and not worth the risk, but I know I personally would be extremely interested in watching an author chip away at their latest book or novel live and in the moment, seeing their sentences put down as they type them and getting a glimpse into their mental process as they do it. I would find that extremely fascinating, and I think a lot of other people would too. Sorry for the long response. This is just something that I've been thinking about lately. Maybe the era of the writer being looked upon as a "mystical" figure that works on their craft behind closed doors is behind us, now. Realistically, if an author hopes to find success in our modern world, scratching and clawing just to break through all the noise and constant spectacle that so easily harnesses our attention, we have to be open to being just as much internet celebrities as we are strange and reclusive writers. Maybe AI is ultimately doing all of us a favor and is going to force us out of our shells and out into the world to be gawked at. It's going to be hard to accuse someone of using AI when you can just go onto their page and literally see them work and sweat over every word and comma live and in full spectacle.
It sounds to me as though it' relates to AI as it is now commonly used for editing, mainly the free downloads without subscription, such a Grammarly, ProWritingAid, or Microsoft editor that comes with Word for grammar and spellcheck. I doubt AI could write a satisfactory 50k book that anyone would want to read, though it could give a story outline for those stuck with ideas.
I use prowritingaid for spell check and grammar. Every now and then for sentence structure if one is really bad and can't think a way around it. Besides, several agents do ask if AI is being used.
I've encountered that, with two or three agents out of 100 in my submission process asking Y/N to using AI on their QueryManager. That's kind of like asking football players if they've ever smoked weed. As a coach, I think I'd be more worried about the athletes morally opposed to it than those who'd tried it.
@@joevaldez6457 Yeah, it is a bit surprising, but at the same time kind of a fair question to see if you put effort into your work. Since AI can do so much now, that you can sit back and just let it do it for you.
If you like the trackability of NaNo, here's an easy spreadsheet recipe to track your daily word count: Column A: Date Column B: (fx=C:C - D:D) Column C: The number of words you have today Column D: The number of words you had yesterday Column B will calculate your daily word count so you can see how close you are to 1663, or whatever number you're going for
What I use generative Ai for, is creating character backstories, world history and lore, and random locations. Then I tweak them to my liking. It's a way to get an idea of what I want and speeding up the process. I start out with an inkling of what I'm looking for in general. Then I populate the world with random characters and fine tune their characteristics. After that I just need to decide which one of them will be the main character based on their personalities. I understand most people prefer to flesh out the details themselves, I would do it too, but I don't have the energy or the patience at this point in my life. Until my emotional burnout get better, I'll be using Ai as a supplement. To clarify, I have never done a NaNoWriMo. If I do, I understand that using generative Ai even for world building would be cheating, as the entire point of the exercise is to speed up my own world building without help.
I've wanted to write since childhood. I've wanted to have a formal education in writing. But, real life got in the way.. I'm older now, and I am now struggling through my first novel. I "say" struggle because it's frustrating not remembering all rules of writing, such as punctuation, grammar, and such. I've always read a lot, so that helps, but it doesn't solve my problems. It has now been years since I started my first novel because I had to slowly learn or relearn what I needed. I wanted to try this thing called AI and did. I found it more baffling than my own struggles. It seemed to want to take away the voice of my characters and to take away my own voice as an author. I turned it off and never used it or will use it again. I haven't had my book edited yet because I'm still doing my own editing. And I'll deal with needing an outside editor when the time comes. I just hope that when the time comes, my editor(s) won't be relying on AI themselves. But that's a struggle for another day. Thanks for sharing about nanowrimo. I've wanted to try my hand at it, but figured, why bring on more struggles for myself. Im glad, now, that I stayed away. By the way, I've always known that the struggle makes you stronger. So I say - bring it on!
I've seen a lot of people preparing to do alternate challenges in November, or do the 50k in a month that works better for them. The MLs for my region have also stepped down from their roles. It's a crazy situation to be in rn.
I have been using gpt to help me draft my novel for several months now. From first hand experience, AIs are still dumb and there is a lot of manual editing to do, sometimes whole chapters cant be written with a generative AI. I use those tools because I consider myself a bad writer, but there is a story that has been cooking in my mind since 2016 and I need to put it in words.
It's called creative destruction - not in the sense of destroying creativity, but as destruction that leads to better creations. There is no stopping it.
We are on the verge of what could be humanity's greatest revolution, much more powerful than the industrial revolution. We still don't know how to regulate it yet (like when children worked in factories every day of the week). I remain expectant (but always on the side of the workers and the fight for decent work/creativity).
In AI honest opinion, AI is revolutionizing the writing world by offering tools for grammar and style checking, generating content, enhancing creativity, providing language translations, and personalizing reading experiences, thereby making writing more accessible and efficient for diverse audiences. NaNoWriMo might be looking to open up the writing world to non-professional writers like me who use AI assistance to express their creativity. The contest is supposed to be a fun thing that allows writers to use their imaginations with or without the help of AI assistance. It took me a while to train my AI assistant, but now it knows exactly my style and tone of my creative writing. PEACE AND LOVE.
It is true that there is a massive bias against writers who don't write well. Story tellers who are bad at telling stories need to be elevated in the writing space. For too long our society has given preference to people who put in the work and are good at what they do and it needs to STOP!
Great post, Alyssa! Of course, publishers are in business, and presumably want to publish whatever will sell, including AI generated fiction. But, writers are creative beings (I hope) and writing is a passion, so AI undermines that if a writer uses it to generate the manuscript. Let's keep AI out off all the creative arts, as far as the actual creation is concerned. Of course, movies use AI to enable the storytelling, but it should the storytelline. I've used AI with delight for research and to learn many new things on many topics. But, I want the words on the page to be mine. Otherwise, what's the point?
I've watched several videos on this topic, and I think this the most reasonable and fair assessment. Thanks for making it! I appreciate you mentioning different types of AI. That AI tools for editing are distinct from generative tools. I find AI grammar tools helpful, but also expensive. I've seen a lot of discussion on this topic condemning all AI tools equally. But you rightly pointed out that the note from NaNoWriMo did not specify the type of AI, which is a shortcoming of their statement.
I use grammarly but the only time I use AI like ChatGPT is for research. For one of my books I needed to know information like how the Milwaukee Police Department was structured and the process for choosing who gets a donor organ. It was very helpful there but for another book I wanted to know the approximate weight of a certain sized meteorite but its answer was ridiculously low.
I mean this genuinely, but why did you need GPT for that? Why not simply look up the Milwaukee police on a search engine or search for "organ donation process"?
I've been a member of many writers' groups which were free to join. There's plenty of good free assistance for writers out there. If you can go online to use AI tools, you can find a good online critique group.
You COULD use AI to write an an entire book and the only thing stopping us from doing that is not condemnation but the fact that book would be terrible. Good use of AI: “Give me 5 ideas for a sympathetic villain who hates magic wielders.” Bad use of AI: Write me the a complete backstory for a sympathetic villain that hates magic. And when I say good and bad, I’m not referring to ethics but the quality of results. AI is a great collaborator, it does not remove the need for a good writer.
As a reader I do not care by whom a book is written as long as I enjoy it. I think trying to stop AI development is futile. I also dislike actors who force a ban on AI in filming. Have they forgot that film-cameras threatened theater-actors? What if the unions back then had said no to any filming? As long as human writers and actors produce better stories they have nothing to be afraid of.
I say writers need to find creative ways of beating AI at its own game. Show that you are a real creative artist by using the greatest powers we have: subtext, metaphorical analogies, creative ways of symbolic thinking etc. If you want to use AI go ahead. Just means you are limiting your own pure creativity, and if not specified that you use AI you will be a fraud unto yourself.
It's actually worse than that, though. Generative AI works by probability, what the next word is LIKELY to be. Which means it's DESIGNED to be generic. You aren't going to get any groundbreaking or truly unique material out of it.
Had high hopes for nanowrimo. I wanted to be apart of organizing events to help others have a venue to write in should they choose. Sometimes there are moments where writing in a group is exciting and beneficial to the writing process. I was largely ignored and have turned away from the organization. I enjoy writing but now im thinking I no longer have a platform.
It’s good to know where they stand, and I will reconcile my own values against theirs, but I only ever used their site as a guidepost to track my word count-both year to year, and over time. I’m probably not boycotting them entirely. Even if I don’t like what they said, which I interpreted as basically wanting everyone to make their own informed decision.
There are also communities that are doing their own version of NaNo. I know Writing Quests is working on Beta Testing their tracker for November's Novel Quest for writing groups to use during their own challenges. With Flexibility to allow writing, editing, or some combo of both, the tracker should be a great tool for writers doing a writing challenge.
Why is it that authors are upset? Do they feel AI writes better than they do? Do they feel there will be an over saturation where people will want to purchase AI generated content over their books? If these are the causes of the fear and AI is able to produce better content why not use it to produce better content? If these factors aren’t the issue then what are they worried about? Obviously AI is becoming a part of human civilization and probably isn’t going anywhere, so rather than complain or fight it, why not use it to its full advantage if this advantage exists? As for the issue of using people’s content for training without permission, that seems to be how society currently works. All corporations benefit from the time, sweat and ideas of the humans who make it all possible. The whole purpose of profit is to exploit others for self advancement. To me it seems that the financial system itself is what people are upset about. If everyone could live comfortably it probably wouldn’t be an issue of what technologies people use. What are your thoughts?
As an avid novel reader, this video kinda baffled me. From what I can see, from what you present yourself in this video, I think NaNoWriMo organizers are talking specifically about the use of AI tools for things like editing and proofreading, not for the physical process of the writing part of it. They doesn't seem to be talking about using AI tools for writing the whole novel itself. It does takes a lot of money to hire good editors and proofreaders, which is why they said it's rather classist and ableist to oppose the use of AI. Indie writers without access to literary agents, can't have access to "free" editors and proofreaders provided by publishing companies. Learning language as non-native speaker also not free, and even native speakers are more often than not are so bad at their own language's rules. Education are more often than not not free. Yes, they didn't specify it on their writing...but does all editors and writers that daft in reading comprehension to read between the lines? do you need everything to be that specified? I can easily spot it, how can you the supposed professional in the industry failed to see it?
If they wanted to be specific, they would have been specific. The vagueness is intentional. They weren't rushing to meet a deadline; hell, they could have never said anything at all and nobody would have noticed. They took exactly as much time as they needed to craft this post, and said exactly what they intended to say, including in their little edit (which was still intentionally vague). They *want* people to "read between the lines" and assume that NaNo isn't *really* talking about ocean-boiling Large Larceny Models. But they are. If they weren't, they had plenty of time to put together a statement on their own platform that clearly said they weren't. "Does all [youtube commenters] that daft in reading comprehension [sic]" that you don't pay attention to what a person consciously chooses NOT to say? And is it a coincidence that the sponsor they just spent a month spam emailing everyone about has a paid tier with genAI writing assistance?
@@theunluckybard7517 they don't have to be that specific. There is also quite literally no vagueness at all, as they've already said in one of their letter that writing a whole novel with AI is silly. They don't need to be specific on every single writings, as all their writings are added to each others as a whole letter of statements. That's not to mention their latest writing itself, where they mention terms like "classist" and "ableist", is already clearly hinted by its wording toward talking about editing and proofreading AI tools. Let me put it bluntly, it's not their responsibility to coddle you for your own lacking in reading comprehension by specifying it in every single letters they wrote. You're responsible with yourselves for being a better reader. Even more so if you're a writer or a so called professional in literary industry, be fucking professional, be less sensational and gossipy, be better. For starter, use less emotional judgment when reading letters, it helps.
@@Naradan2.0 Oh, ok, so you're just here to be an asshole and argue. Or maybe you really DO think Public Relations communications are 100% true with no reading-between-the-lines required. Either way, enjoy your ChatGPT novel, I'm sure it'll do great.
@@MrEvldreamr I can agree with what you said. Too much unnecessary explanations and "argumentative statements" are sometimes more detrimental than beneficial. NaNoWriMo would've definitely been better if they just didn't post anything about it beyond their first statement at all. The use of words such as "classist" and "ableist" also does makes many emotional readers forgo their logic and critical thinking in favor of their emotion.
As a South African, writing from a country with a bad currency exchange rate, I would argue that allowing AI-tools greatly increases privilege and classism. How are we to compete in a market with cheap tools available to US citizens, but with dollar payments that make it exorbitantly expensive in most African and other lesser developed countries. This is an excellent example of virtue-signalling policy decisions without proper research, eating its own tail. Writing used to be the great artistic equaliser for all countries and peoples. Your tools used to be a pen, a brain and an earth-shattering message and you could become anything, anywhere. This is what makes writing special and magical. we need to protect and cherish this. Imagine Chinua Achebe's ground-breaking African novella Things Fall Apart if run through an American AI. It would eat up all the subtle, beautiful colloquial language nuances and spit out something bland and generic resembling the plot of Lion King.
There might be a logistics issue at the heart of their decision here. Even a limited stance against AI would require NaNoWriMo organizers to monitor for infractions and make disqualification decisions if even the smallest portion of a story is written with generative AI. The organization probably doesn't have the time, resources, or will to go through that hassle, so they've chosen this route to avoid such headaches. The reasons they give for this decision sound nice, but it could be a smokescreen to avoid extra work the volunteers didn't sign up for.
Sorry Alyssa, I also agree that AI is too broad a technology to outright condemn. Autocorrect in Microsoft word is “AI”. Language translation can be easily achieved with AI. Speech to text translation is an “AI” tech that could enable people who would otherwise be excluded from writing, especially with a tight deadline. Plus I can think of some scenarios where generative AI could genuinely assist an author, with specific emphasis on class. You could use it to understand an experience that is outside of your financial means; going on holiday, sailing a yacht, driving a racing car, eating in a fancy restaurant, etc. This could help make a scene more realistic to the audience.
Traditional publishing is flipping out about AI because it is a major threat to their power structure and, most importantly, their money. ChatGPT is spectacular at Line Editing...especially when you give specific parameters and edit more yourself.
As someone who has a mental disorder herself i find it condescending to say not wanting AI in the writing room is abelist or classist first off for as long as i been in special ed i do not want to use AI in my writing despite going to special ed classes i can write storys, poems thank you very much
Um... Either I'm really stupid or virtually nobody has read any AI-generated novels. I mean, all I've seen were crap! The current level of AI seems unable to manage vital things like voice, character arcs, theme... I'm even questioning it can manage structure or tempo. Unless you do HEAVY editing (and then, who really wrote the thing?) A side note: AI is a terrible misnomer, it's a large language model (LLM or if you want to, Machine Learning/ML)... the closest to intelligence would be to think of it as a dreaming mind that just spits out stuff that is a bit more coherent than an actual dream (unless you're generating pictures... then it can easily turn into a nightmare... or, of course, it starts hallucinating when it shouldn't or doesn't when it should...) But as the video says, you may not need the organization to do it. And I always thought of NaNoWriMo as a kind of 1 month forum/group session focused on writing 50k words (I haven't actually done one myself, so I could be dead wrong). Having some guy that generated their 50k words on day one is neither going to be useful in that discussion, nor would they likely participate that much in it, or motivate anyone etc. Though, maybe there is a use case for future groups that spend the month trying to figure out how to prompt the LLM to get the best novel... that's another kind of creativity, I guess... but as mentioned... good luck with that... Maybe the whole text from NaNoWriMo was generated by Gemini trying to be super PC? However, on the ableist comment... what if someone who would never have been able to write a novel manages to do it with AI? What would that do to their self-image? What if they figured out how to make it good? I mean, I too have been writing novels while being disabled, but that's because I CAN so that comment is really beside the point here... the point is if AI would give us new interesting voices in literature... (Though, that would likely be in 10-20-30 years... whenever the LLM hype is over and work can progress along more sane paths...)
This is just another example of why I hate the writing business. I am not entirely sure writing was ever supposed to be a business. It is kind of like being in the 'walking business'. Fundamentally, walking is a means to an end, other than walking itself. One may enjoy walking, and some may actually be better at it than others, and at the end of the walk is a destination. One could argue the destination is all that truly counts. But the destination is the culmination of the walk itself. No matter how you cut it, taking a cab instead is not the same thing. It does not entail the same experience, and the destination experience will inevitably reflect that difference. Regardless of efficiency or expedience, taking a cab is not a walk. Fin. Fin of what, exactly? Writing is not the only profession doomed to die of self-inflicted wounds. There is little comfort, but at least some sympathy in that melancholy fact. Write for other reasons.
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“Computers are useful servants but are not good masters”- Spock, TOS
Fascinating and logical.
"Why you cold hearted, green blooded, son of a.." Leonard McCoy MD.
I've written 35 books. Some are 200k-282k words long, and others are short (for me, 130k). One book took four years. Another took ten years to get right. You heard right. TEN YEARS. I'm not really a fan of AI other than as a spell check. AI, for me, is like a drum machine in the 80's. All the drummers freaked out, but nothing, NOTHING beats the real human experience. I continue to write down what the voice say in my head, without the prompt of a machine. It's worked out pretty well for me so far. :)
Motley Crue is using playbacks in their live shows and the fans can tell, lol.
Thanks for sharing. As someone who's taking a long and arduous time to write it is recomforting to know I'm not alone ❤
I'm a drummer (and a writer) and I approve this message!
@@gao1812this is tangential but I love this word: recomfort :)
Well it is very helpull tu turn my overlong convolutent sentences in manageable ones. I feed small fragments of my text into it and let it rewrite it several times to see, what options I could havet change in my sentences to make them more clear and still have the meaing and details in that are necessary. Also I regularly let AI interpret and comment on my fragments of text - to see it the point I wanted to make in it comes across. The instant detailed feedback make the writing process far more fun and helps me stay motivated - it is as if the page would "respond" to me. But I would never let AI write a text wholly on its own - safe an official mail or drafting an autorisation form for someting - a narrative text witten by a AI seldom goes anywhere near the promper intended.
For years I've heard about nanowrimo from writers who didn't even mention that there was some kind of organization attached to the challenge. And I've already tried the challenge twice without even knowing that the nonprofit existed. So this year I'll be trying it again. For myself, as a motivation tool, not for them.
Well, there you go. I’m finished with NanoWriMo.
Second, I’m truly getting tired of all of this equality/equity arguments. It just sounds like people whining all the time. Great artists do come from harsh backgrounds, and their struggles are what makes the intriguing story and the great art.
Rich people who have the money to pay their personal editors can start their own competition "Rich Boys Club".
A lot if it stems from narcissism. Expecting unearned special status/attention.
You're finished how? lol. You've done and submitted your ready story? Or you're leaving as a result of this? I'll give you the former. The latter, that's giving up.
My thinking on AI is that there are certain tools which have been generally accepted by authors for a long time; if you are using AI to replace those tools, such as a dictionary, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia, etc., then there’s no problem.
However, having AI write for you removes your integrity as an author. You remove your own voice and deprive the world of a fresh perspective.
Agreed
If you aren't using AI to aid in line editing, you are handicapping yourself. For instance, take a paragraph you wrote. Insert it into ChatGPT. Ask to edit and polish your paragraph... maintaining the prose and tone... and write 5 different variations for your analysis. It is revolutionary and if you are hellbent on sending an real editor slop, that's your choice.
@@eternal_napalm6442I won’t lie I have done that a few times. I’m not completely comfortable doing it cause I feel like it doesn’t help me to grow as a writer if I can’t trim the fact so to speak. Honestly I like ai…it’s been a great tool for me. I’m not for using it to right but damn has it been great for brain storming.
@@eternal_napalm6442 Just hand it your writer badge and be done with it.
@@eternal_napalm6442 Or because I'm actually good at writing, I chose the exact words and word order I wanted so I don't need an algorithm to randomize it for me. It's already how I want it. If you write slop, that's a skill issue and you should work to improve it instead of making a an algorithm do it for you
As someone who came up extremely poor, it's bizarre entering the middle class and seeing so many "disabled" people in it who can't do something like write. I work as a SPED educator and see mild to severe cases of learning disabilities and communication disorders and we use technology to better the quality of life for these students and then I encounter people in my degree program who live very comfortable lives who then tell me it's "ableist" to expect them to write a paper without AI. I didn't know it was expanding towards NaNoWriMo.
Like everything else, writing for the most case is not something that everyone is born talented with. Many needs teachers to help them learning, and then there are people who still have a hard time learning even after receiving the assistance of teachers.
I can't tell you how many times I have a facepalm moment over seeing how dumb people are in logic and reading comprehension. But then I always remember that analytical thinking and language comprehension is just simply the talent that I'm born with, while being so average at things like sport...and writing. I'm even suck at writing a letter myself.
I think people just need to realize more that none of them are the perfect standard of how everyone else had to be as well. Otherwise we would all be Einstein, Mohammed Ali, and Leonardo Da Vinci at the same time.
You are AI. Please go away.
@Naradan2.0 If I am not good a sports, dont have a natural talent for it and yet want to pursue a hobby or even a career in the field, what am I to do?
Train.
Not dope myself because "it's the only way i can compete and i am by default inferior to others"
Writing is a creative process. Not everyone is shakespeare. You do not have to be shakespeare to write. It's art. It's a creative project. Everyone can be creative.
It's a matter of expressing yourself
Using AI is the antithesis to self-expression, which you replace with the reformulated work of others, which the AI tool has delievered to you.
AI is awesome and I use it very often. It just keeps getting better.
But we must learn restraint as a people with this new technology. In this modern culture of consumerism and fast paced everything, "I wanna learn everything as fast as possible and do everything ws fast as possible" without much thought put into it, people are sacrificing their own self expression, one of the greatests gifts in life.
@@miguelpadeiro762 so, you're telling me that every football players had to either learn how to make their own football fields or rent one to train, and never to use free empty fields beside their house, or don't play football at all? So now athletes also shouldn't run on the street for stamina training, because it's free?
Because that's basically what you're telling writers to do if they can't edit and proofread themselves, either pay or don't write at all, no free tools allowed. Since learning proper form of language requires money for most, so basically pay or pay unless you can get the attention of publishing house that would give you their editors.
Do you realize how gatekeeping and unreasonable you're there? Am I right to assume that you're a professional editor and proofreader, or something similar?
@@miguelpadeiro762 btw, I never said people should write their whole novels using AI at all. I'm saying that people should be allowed to use AI tool for editing and proofreading. I also thinks that using AI tool for research purpose and overcoming writer's block should be okay.
The very idea that if you don't have money to buy professional service or learn to do it yourself, then you shouldn't do anything that requires that specific skill at all, is very disturbing and anti-progress to me.
It sounds like they're saying , "Just participate in our thing. We really dont care if you use AI to write some or all of it. But if you do its probably because you're disadvantaged. Just write so we can take partial credit."
they're saying: Ai needs your information or it will not evolve in the future.
Oh yes, and equity is important…the dumb will be given the ability to write a book. Wait. They’re so dumb they think they actually wrote one.😂
This is so bizarre. It feels like its saying "Because you struggle with coming up with a plot, creating compelling characters, describing a scene, and writing a book, you should be able to us AI." So basically, if you're not good at being a writer, you should be able to use AI to level the playing field with those who are good writers. I don't know if you can "cheat" when it comes to writing, but this kind of feels like it.
When I first read the story "Harrison Bergeron" decades ago, I naively thought it was a ridiculous premise. Now I it's obvious that Vonnegut was prescient.
I tried Ai to see what the hubbub was about. The output was absolute garbage when left to its own device. I still don’t understand why anyone thinks Ai could be a standalone substitute for quality creative writing. The Ai user STILL has to have a writing skillset and a creative mind for good results and to know what that means. The user STILL has to do a ton of work and guide it in the right direction for a quality read in the end. It’s sort of like Photoshop… anyone can use it, but not everyone has the creative vision and talent to use it well. IMO, Ai is just a tool for the author to use to simplify certain processes, but it could never take the place of the human mind and its creative genius. As for NaNoWriMo….if someone wants to write their garbage novel with Ai and give themselves a pat on the back without actually doing the work to meet the challenge…? It’s their own personal crappy choice and they are only hurting themselves in the end. People need to calm down because there are far worse things in the world to worry about.
Yes! What you said is true. It cannot work without a human being guiding and directing it
I don't think any serious authors are actually trying to use AI to write their books. Sure, there's some low-content hacks out there trying, inspired by the get rich quick schemes that RUclipsr's are pushing to get views. Those make me laugh. Authors and rich are two words that have nothing in common. You'd make more money starting a bad garage band than trying to start off as an author.
The authors, like myself, that use AI in our writing use it to accelerate and improve our writing experience. Much of the author community has a misperception that people are telling AI "hey, write a book about this." That couldn't be further from the truth. If they did, they'd get a mountain of trash. I'd suggest checking out author specific software that is designed with the author in mind, that just happens to have AI support. Software like NovelCrafter. If you are properly populating the codex and filling out all of the scene beats yourself, and only then, when the AI has a very narrow set of instructions and is only allowed to write a couple of hundred words, do you let it go. Most of the time it's still crap, but it's crap that you can edit in your second draft. My goal in using AI is to get to the second draft as quickly as possible. You don't do editing in the first draft because your editor is likely to tell you to rewrite quite a bit anyway. Cleanup comes after developmental editing. If you do use AI though, it's important to maintain your integrity and do plagiarism checks for any original thought that the AI comes up with (usually it's just little things like jokes since you've restricted it so much.)
@@BruceWayne15325 Precisely, I am not good at rote writing, and frankly I don't enjoy the "writing" part of writing a story. I like being creative. Worldbuilding, character creation, outlining, etc.
The "writing" is just work. There are only so many ways you can assemble words in order to tell a story.
If I paid a ghost writer to sit and do the stuff I don't like doing, according to these people that's fine.
I do the same with an AI, somehow that's wrong. It's hypocritical.
I am still the one giving it all the ideas and information. I am the one directing every single thing it writes. I am the one proofreading and correcting the countless mistakes, tangents, jumping ahead in the story, etc that it constantly makes.
I am babysitting the AI every step of the way.
What I'm not doing is sitting at a blank text doc trying to decide what to write. I'm not worrying about how to say things, or what characters should be saying. I am letting the AI knock out a couple hundred words, then checking it over to see if I like it, then editing and adding as I go.
It is EXTREMELY liberating.
If people want to spend years slogging through trying to write a book, go for it. I'd rather use AI to keep things moving and finish a book in a few months.
The anti-ai nonsense is pretentious snobbery. Nothing else.
@@acidhedzgamez1867 well I think most of the anger comes from a lack of understanding about the technology. People have the impression that pseudo-authors are telling AI "make this book for me" and it does it. That's simply not the case... or at least if anyone is dumb enough to try that they aren't getting any sales. Being an author is a lot of work, far beyond simply writing. Writing is actually the easy part. Even with AI, it takes me about a month or two to write the book. But then I have to go through the editorial gauntlet, because let's face it. AI writing is absolutely terrible, even the best models like Sonnet 3.5 are not producing prose that anyone would want to read. I don't look at this as a huge problem though since AI still saves me time in that I can get to the developmental edit that much faster. The editor will typically request major changes that will require a massive amount of rewriting anyway. I don't typically use AI much once I've reached the developmental editing stage. From that point on, it's me fixing up the novel, rewriting it with my voice and style, cleaning up the scenes to be sure that the conflict pops, etc. The editorial process still takes months and months. AI is a great boon, but it's by no means a replacement for authors or editors.
A good book isn't written, it's edited and polished. Even if you're writing with AI (actually, especially if you're writing with AI) you have months and months of editing ahead of you when you finally finish "writing" to turn your mountain of garbage into something beautiful that people want to actually read.
@@BruceWayne15325 I use Sudowrite, it allows me to tell the AI how I want it to write, so I've never had much of a problem with the prose.
Besides, considering that a lot of books that are very popular, are not considered to have very good prose, I'm not that worried about it.
Wait. Did the NaNoWriMo team say that underrepresented authors may *need* to use AI because they're underrepresented? Meaning, their work won't be good enough if they did the work themselves? And that they'd fail in the indie space? Indie publishing is where anyone can shine if they put in the effort and get creative with marketing.
that's very much what they mean, sadly.
There is literally publishing houses dedicated to minorities now! They have a much better chance than they did twenty years ago. Not to mention I've read some excellent indie published works. The method of publication doesn't necessarily mean quality..... NAMOWRIMO has a lot it needs to address. The implications are heartbreaking.
It's like they're weaponizing minority identities to continue pushing AI. Like, I'm a minority author, and the major obstructions to us are how little free time we get to write and explore art as compared to middle class white authors, how much access we get to literature when we don't get libraries funded. AI is like putting a bandaid on generations of historical racism.
@@marthawest6717 It's an advanced case of foisting learned helplessness and demoralization onto the crowd. In short, Idiocracy. Pass the Brawndo--this might take a minute to fully assimilate.
They're basically saying that the use of AI tools for editing and proofreading shouldn't be opposed.
What underrepresented writers that had to go the indie route needs the most are editors and proofreaders, not ghost writers. When a writer is represented by a literary company, they will get in-house editors and proofreaders for free. For indie writers, they had to either pay to hire editor and proofreader themselves, or use AI tools. For editing and proofreading, most AI tools can be used for free.
I am currently taking a class on LLMs at my local library. Fascinating. The lecturer suggested giving all 6 the same prompt and to compare the results. Claude told me off: "This is not what I do." Meta told me I didn't give it enough information, ChatGPT and Perplexity rephrased my question in paragraph form, and the two remaining suggested I look elsewhere (ancestry research, genealogy at local library) for answers. Most did, however, conclude that the person I am researching is "unimportant" and/or "not historically relevant." I can't wait to find out more at my local library. :)
I did NaNoWriMo last year all on my own. My goal was not to write a book in a month, but to build better writing habits and push myself on the book I had already made some progress on. My daily goal was 500 words. By the end of the month, I had essentially doubled my current draft's length, and I came out of it with a renewed sense of drive and habits that helped me finish my book by March. So yes, there is absolutely no need to participate officially. Just set a goal and watch your writing habits change for the better!
It’s not like Nanowrimo didn’t know there would be backlash. The only reason I can see them doubling down on such a controversial topic is 💵💵💵💵
NaNoWriMo is entirely on the honor system. If you write, "I like to write stories." 10,000 times that would be a legitimate win and a boring read.
Being on the honor system you could score a win just by logging in every day and updating your word count without actually writing anything. Nobody could tell if you wrote anything or not.
So I'm not worried about whether someone is using AI. Even I have an AI spell-check nagging that my names don't match the expected English vocabulary.
Exactly, that’s why it’s so odd that they went out of there way to write such a badly crafted post deliberately defending AI usage in their competition despite all of the theft issues. With them having a generative AI sponsor with subscription services and costs up to $700, their leader wrote this on their own without consulting anyone and managed to make everyone angry with how they did it, except the AI tech supporters who were happy that their weak classist, ableist arguments were utilized by a once very respected organization.
While I have little fear about AI replacing genuine writing, as an aspiring editor, it concerns me how many people are defending the use of AI in editing. We have to stand up to it before it becomes a genuine threat. People forget that there are other and better tools out there without it. Let's not forget the advantage of human editors: they can catch your vision for the story and help you get there. They can tell you how readers are likely to experience it and help your story come across the way you want it to. It's not all about grammar.
Where I'm at, my local ML has actually resigned. In light of the incident last year, they cracked down hard on expectations and were expecting people to essentially do jobs for more than half the year (around the months of Nano, and Camp Nano) for free. My former ML (whom I am friends with) just couldn't do it. In my writer's group, we all work full time jobs, as well as write. There's no time for an additional unpaid job in the meantime, with no benefit or perks whatsoever.
I don't use AI tools myself, but have some friends who do. Especially to help them in beginning to track down comparable titles that they can then go forward to read! There are certainly advantages to using it in specific instances, but generative leaves such a bad taste... I do wish the Nano team were more clear on what tools they were speaking of.
My local group was planning to do a 'spirit of nano' without it being formal kind of challenge anyway, and this just solidifies that decision. I really appreciate your take and information on this. Thank you!
AI may be better off as a search engine instead of a writing tool.
AI is really helpful for editing but that is where it should come to a stop. Use it to make sure your commas are used properly and you don't have double spaces where one will do.
The content should be all human in my opinion. The details of grammar can be touched up with AI ethically.
i actually find searching for certain things, even restaurants or locations much more difficult. idk if it's just google, might have to switch search engine.
If you’re interested in AI as a research tool, I’d suggest Perplexity over ChatGPT. Perplexity quotes its resources.
Until it tells you to eat a poison mushroom
@djwaglmuffin *With swollen face.
"Are you suggesting I shouldn't have eaten that mushroom?"
ChatGPT is good for running simulations of reading groups who are reading your work. It isn't a very good writer though.
Grammarly is a great option for editing though. At least, for the grammatical aspects.
I think AI is appropriate as a limited tool to polish things up but shouldn't be used for the actual foundation production side.
I use Grammarly, and so far, I’m not very satisfied with it. It struggles to understand jokes, sarcasm, references, and the unique creative voice a writer brings to their work. As a result, it often makes my writing feel less human and more generic.
And let’s not even get started on the 'raise impact' feature-it almost always flags something in the text as 'offensive language' and then refuses to work. What’s even more frustrating is that it doesn’t tell me which part of the text is problematic or why it’s being flagged.
@lunafencoven For sure. I've found that each type of software has a very specific use. I wouldn't recommend Grammarly for context improvement at all. It is decent for sentence structure and grammar. Any other use is going to pull your writing into a generic pool.
I use AI in my writing as a tool. I handwrote my manuscript and being a slow typer...typist? typerer?...I would just dictate each chapter into google docs and use AI to look for certain things....as an example, I would have them list all the names in the chapter. I know who should be there, but if the dictation robot misheard me, it could have changed a name. Like changing Lor to Laura. I use it for basic editing and when I get it tight enough, I'll hire someone to do my main copy edit. The more I can get it polished before I send it to a service that I (rightfully) have to pay for, the cheaper it may be on me in the long run. It should never write the story.
Speech to text is a fantastic tool and my SPED students use it regularly.
for me this sounds no different than the typical grammar\spelling tools that most document programs use. The autocorrect feature is probably what gets the names wrong since it may not recognize Lor as being a real name.
Very few people have issues with non generative AI. That is where the arguments happen. Accessibility Assistance is getting classified as "AI" and getting lumped in with Generative AI that takes a 20 word prompt and turns it into a 2500 word chapter.
I use it for grammar and spellcheck too. Its also a decent thesaurus, though goofle works just as well.
@@Belthazar1113 see i dont even know what you said. I have no idea what any of that means 😂.
Imo, AI is like any other invention its there for ease of process but it can never truly replace human creativity bc it cannot function without a human being. And im pretty sure humans are amart enough to know a book is AI generated. There are telltale signs
They aren't saying AI is the solution to these problems. They explicitly don't promote or condemn any specific technique. It's just that for writers who do view AI as the solution to their problems, NaNoWriMo doesn't condemn them.
Yeah, but I don't want to compete against someone using performance enhancing drugs if I'm an athlete, and I want the sports governing body of my sport to take a firm stance against it. Right? Drug tests and all that. I also don't want to compete against someone who is simply using AI to write 50,000 somewhat coherent words in order to try to win a contest against people who have actually used their writing skills (that they have worked hard to develop) to write their own stories.
Not saying people shouldn't be allowed to use AI to write. But they shouldn't use AI in a contest environment. I mean, what would be the point of the Nobel, Booker, or Pulitzer prizes if it turns out all the authors winning those prestigious awards were using AI to draft their stories?
@@brindlebucker4741 NaNoWriMo isn't a competition. The only prize is the satisfaction of having completed a novel. Anyone can cheat and submit a novel they've spent years on. There are no safeguards against cheating because you don't even win anything anyway.
I agree that for whatever competition there is, if there are AI rules then participants should adhere to them.
@@BidwellRunner No, but trying to get books published is. If a publishing company can just use AI to get new books written, why bother getting an author. It can just "read" past stories and blend together a new story. That is what authors are competing against.
i personally am using ai (by that i mean chat gpt) to do things like research for my novel, and as a way to check my first draft for any plot issues or grammer issues while writing. it also just feels good to be able to discuss different ideas and approaches that i wouldn't go and ask someone about. for example:
i was thinking what the mortality rate should be in my stories main group. so the ai gave me some similar books and told me what the mortality rate is in those. and then i chose based off the book that i felt had the most believable but not heartbreaking amount of deaths.
its also great for keeping track of my word count and telling me what amount of words i should aim to have in each chapter etc.
and it points out sections where i could write better...
chat gpt realy helped me start, it made a lot of stuff easier and more simple. its still my story that im writing from start to finish, but it definetly helps to have an ai to consult with.
@@thehevytrooper exactly
I also use it for brainstorming. You shouldn't use AI to write your book for you because you'll end up with boring and repetitive writing. Instead, you may use it as a tool to help you find the words you need to say what you intend to say. AI has sped up my writing process so much.
I use it just as you. "Tell me if this scenario is believable." "How do I describe a criminal without talking about his face"
Just in case you don't know anything you put into AI tools they are going to train their data on it.
To me, AI is just a glorified search engine.
That ableism thing really got under my skin. There are plenty of solutions to problems disabled writers face that have nothing to do with AI and it's like some of these people don't even want to try.
ebooksbyai AI fixes this. AI Controversy Shaking the Book World
That "classism"/"ableism" argument is such a cop-out, and pretty insulting to poor/disabled writers. If you need generative AI to help "improve" your writing, then you were never built for the craft in the first place. Like Alyssa said, writing is free, and talent and hard work knows no class boundaries.
I agree. I swear the only people going on diatribes about "ableism" and "classism" are the ones who know [or at least believe] they don't have any talent and need some kind of cheat to get up on the pedestal. You know like how a lot of amateur artists just copy anime styles and insist "it's their style".
Agree with all but the last part. Talent and hard work can definitely be negated by class. This is why we have underqualified untalented nepo babies
Ai is actually really great. Blanket anti-ai stances like that are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The biggest thing you lose when ai is used by people is the "permission" from society to feel that toxic superiority you get from being more successful than other human beings. It's intoxicating, necessary for evolution, but also very immature. It's more mature to allow ai and humble humanity not to be so special, and at the same time, being ok with that. Not getting depressed because other possible beings can be better than us would be a true test of humanity's capacity for grace. Sadly, we all start from 0%, and everybody must make the mistakes of their ancestors. I can't force you to be more mature, I can only invite you to be.
@@dmitryalexandersamoilov "Ai is actually really great" said no real writer ever.
If you actually think any kind of generative AI can produce writing better than a human's you should never be anywhere near a keyboard.
@@absolutelycitron1580 That's not what I was saying though. I said that talent knows no class boundaries, not that untalented people can get ahead because they have the resources to. That's a completely different argument.
I am a tech guy. AI fascinates me, and the facets that it provides across many industries is incredible. I also just recently finished the rough draft of my novel, using AI.
Now, I did not generate content directly using AI, I actually used it periodically for feedback, to get a glimpse at what objectively is and isn’t working.
It doesn’t work.
When you ask an AI model to generate or evaluate a piece of work, it does a couple things:
1. It synthesizes a voice based on a series of factors, like other creative works. While this might give a general idea of how something could be rewritten, it is incapable of replicating your voice and style specifically. Additionally, it switches its voice style with every prompt you feed it, unless you are extremely meticulous about the prompts you feed it.
2. When evaluating text quality, not only does it evaluate from the skewed lens mentioned above, but it then takes deeper context to evaluate based on specific facets of creative writing, which then requires the model to emulate another creative voice to compare it to. This means you can get an evaluation from the same model ranging from an A to a D, simply based on the contextual factors it has to fill in. Not reliable feedback.
Now, what it HAS done well for me and for those who like the idea of supportive AI-
1. Ideas. If you are in a rough spot in your book and you need recommendations for how your character might escape or embrace a scenario, asking for ambiguous ideas is a great way to crack through writers block.
2. Expanding vocabulary. If you ask AI to rewrite your work, it will mechanically and methodically pick apart and rewire the text in a way that pulls your own voice out of the work. However, one thing it’s good about doing is using powerful and compelling words and imagery to invoke a scene that you may not have considered here before. So in a couple places I asked for rewrites, and then cherry-picked the words and wove them into the text without damaging voice, which immediately strengthened the emotional impact.
3. Objective text analysis. This is specifically tools like Marlowe, that objectively analyze the text and tell you information about the book, rather than try to understand it on a human level. This style of objectivity, rather than taking a computers emotional evaluation as gospel, should be the approach you take if you plan to use AI to assist with writing, because only people can read your work and feel something from it.
They're correct, though they should have been more specific about the general types of AI assistance they approve or disapprove of. Saying everyone has equal access to writing "because I did it" is exactly the classism they're referring to. When they say ableism and disabilities, they're not talking about people in wheelchairs. They're talking about certain types of neurodivergence that make it very difficult to perform certain tasks in the writing process that others can do easily. Some of those people have enough money and resources to pay to overcome those obstacles. Others can't. "What," I hear you asking, "did they do before modern tools like AI?" They started Nanowrimo, got really frustrated, and gave up on writing. I know it's hard to believe, but there are one or two people who didn't finish Nanowrimo. Also, I'm an editor myself, and eventually my job will be mostly eliminated by AI tools (though I do mostly scientific work so it'll probably be among the last to fall to AI). However, the reality is that most writers can't afford a human editor for everything they write, and those are the people who stand to benefit the most from AI assistance.
I'm dyslexic and have other noralogicalI issues.
I use AI to help with spelling, sentence structure, listening to what I have written, and on the rare occasion if a paragraph just doesn't sound right, I ask AI for options on how to rewright that paragraph. Sometimes, choosing from more than one suggestion and rearranging the paragraph the way I think it sounds best. It's only that paragraph, not the whole story.
What I'm trying to say is I use AI as the tool it should be. Not just let it write the story. That would defeat the whole point of writing a story in the first place.
That is awesome that you are pursuing your dream despite the challenges! Keep going and don't let yourself falter!
I'm stunned that this AI thing is what's doing it rather than 2023 NaNoWriMo moderator child grooming controversy. Really, writers? You're upset that NaNo said if people want to use AI that's Okay (as if they could track this or stop it), but not about a moderator allowed to stay on when they were being inappropriate with minors? Hell, if someone wants to use AI to complete NaNoWriMo, what does it hurt anyone else? Just write your books (away from NaNo, preferably) and don't worry about what other people are doing. AI writes terrible fiction, anyway. I just feel that people are getting worked up about the wrong thing.
Dang, I should have read the comments before posting because I just literally wrote the same sentiment! It's a bit disconcerting where the line has been drawn.
What troubles me most about AI writing tools and their massive adoption is how terrified people are of writing, of just saying the thing in their own words and being okay with it. Everyone feels that what they have to say and how they say just isn't good enough. That's it's gotta be made fancier.
I would rather read a human account of something that is genuine and heartfelt and personal, with all of its grammatical warts and wrinkled syntax, than a robot's well-polished imitation.
There's a Hemingway story that starts: "That night we lay on the floor in the room and I listened to the silk-worms eating. The silk-worms fed in racks of mulberry leaves and all night you could hear them eating and a dropping sound in the leaves."
What I've always loved about that description is Hem could not have written such a thing unless he'd actually experienced it. I had no idea you could hear silk-worms eating and that they'd occasionally fall down through the leaves. This is the advantage that humans have over AI: AI doesn't live in the real world. It won't ever find itself sleep under racks of mulberry leaves while silk-worms spin above them. It can't sit on some lonely cliff and paint the unique landscape laid out in front of it. At best, it can only steal the work of the real humans that experienced those things and then wrote about them...or painted them...or sang about them.
I'm from Kenya. I'm teaching myself fiction and AI is my feedback thing. I'm improving because of it. Instead of paying a human editor I'm using AI. (Developmental, word choice, descriptions, etc.)
You say there are other ways of getting feedback for free. Nano does not dispute that. But why not AI? It's the quickest. This is not theory/hypothetical. I'm part of what that Nano statement is describing. So you can imagine what I think about wholesale condemnation of AI as a technology in my case.
You don't have friends who would be willing to read your work? No access to online writing groups to get peer feedback? No experience reading other books to see what works well for you in those books and then trying to replicate it yourself?
In addition to writing, I do fiber arts. If there was a machine that I could prompt with what I wanted and have it do it for me, I wouldn't use it because the whole point of my art is to make it.
AI might give faster feedback, but it isn't engaging with your work on a human level. It's doing a mathematical analysis. Output isn't the measure of success. Look at Tolkien. He had very little published during his lifetime in comparison to his whole body of ideas but he's still considered foundational to his genre. Writing one book that came from your craft is more worthy than writing ten books that a math equation told you how to improve by comparing your words to other people's words using only math.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence that they are in partnership with an AI product.
It might be interesting for NANOWRIMO to do a sort of "John Henry against the Machine" competition, a year where they split the competition into two categories: RAW (no AI assistance whatsoever), and ASSISTED (Authors who use some form of AI in writing their drafts). Then, after they choose a winner from each category, have a "Runoff" where they have a panel of experts (whoever they are) pick ONE winner. The problem with totally banning all AI is that now, nearly EVERY SINGLE TOOL you use has incorporated some form of AI.. this includes Grammarly, ProWrite, Fictionary, WORD, Scrivner, etc. etc. AI is becoming almost impossible to avoid, unless you unplug all devices and go back to a typewriter or pen and paper.
I have my word processor, Wordperfect, that's all. It's all anyone needs to write. I avoid using anything else. When most of these things came out, my thought was "Isn't it the writer's job to learn this stuff?"
@@adamhenrysears3288 WORDPERFECT??? Wow, the best word processing software ever made. Had no idea it was even still in existence, I loved that program. What kind of word processor do you have?
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What kind of 4chan garbage is being peddled here?
I draw the line at AI writing the book.
I don't see any issues with writers getting help from AI tools. I mean, why pay someone to spot a basic/silly grammar error (we all make them) when even the free AI tools can do it as your writing? I can even give them limited use of generative AI. Sometimes the brain pan is just fried and you need a little help figuring out how to phrase something. or use it as a placeholder while you keep working on the rest of the book. Like all other tech, there are legitimate times and places to use AI.
If you don't support the use of AI, just don't read the books that use it.
Well said. As soon as other people or committees start dictating what "real" writing is and who earned their spot in line, we're all in trouble.
When I joined them years ago, it was a great place.
I was looking for a place to find community after my fiancé died (sad fact, you find your social circle shrinks significantly after the death of a partner). And I found camaraderie and belonging again. I got my first completed novel idea as a result of a NaNo plot bunny. I even met several of my closest friends as a result.
A few years ago, it started becoming a toxic echo chamber. I quickly found myself on the wrong side of several arguments through no fault of my own and even harassed for my works as toxic...even though my books had been previously accepted. I even got admonished by mods more than once. I brought up the problem to the higher ups and got pooh-poohed. The harassment got so severe that I left.
It's heartbreaking, honestly. But I'm not surprised that's now their stance. They were so focused on being so welcoming that they left the proverbial back door open.
Their argument is, if I’m not as strong as the world’s strongest man, then I can use a forklift. Everything has to be fair. People aren’t allowed to be better and yet they’re hosting a contest.
ding ding ding ☝️
Some of the greatest works in history, whether writing or something else, have been built from the cracked hands of struggling peasants.
Making the pathway easier won't put more heart and soul into work. Instead, we will see a flood of mediocre books and artworks filling every crevice of the market and making it harder for the true gems to come to the surface.
My mom reads 3 novels per week on average. It has gotten more difficult for her to find quality in the endless sea of self-published garbage.
She does find some exceptional and brilliant indie authors, but it takes some swimming through the swamps to get to the clear and clean water.
"People aren’t allowed to be better and yet they’re hosting a contest." I almost spit out my pop laughing so hard!
It's Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron."
But it's not a contest?
Man AI is just tearing this community apart.
It’s ridiculous how some people believe AI could be stopped.
I agree, it’s disconcerting and something new and frightening.
Please don’t just write your whole novels using AI. But who honestly thinks AI can be stopped? That horse has bolted.
NaNoWriMo is taking the right approach here for what the organization is. Their mission is to encourage folks to write. That's it. Nothing more. If folks use AI, their evil twin, or just make up the fact that they wrote stuff ... Caring much about that is outside of their bailiwick. They also note that they have no idea where this world is going.
Anyway. People will get upset with whatever position the organization takes. This position is about as "we take no position" as you can get. :)
It's hard when you're made obsolete.
Your response was nuanced and thorough, as I have come to expect of this channel. Thank you!
There is an ableism component to AI. I’ve made this argument for illustration too, as I am both a writer and artist. The issue I have is using it as a finished work, rather than part of your ideation or research process. Personally, I use it as a tool to get over anxiety and neurodivergence. I don’t use it write but I use it to help organize my thoughts and act as an interactive smarthub.
Their arguments makes sense but they weren’t clear enough in condemning the elephant in the room.
Something to be considered... generative AI cannot be copywritten. So if you choose to use generative AI in your writing process you cannot copyright the work. Many publishers won't work with you if you use it. You can self- publish but you still won't be able to copyright it.
But we wanna know what YOUR thoughts are.
Ray Charles was blind and Beethoven was deaf, where the hell are they going with this?
Are you saying that all deaf people are capable of doing what Beethoven did? Exactly.
People need to stop thinking that how talented one person born to be as a standard on how talented everyone else had to be born as. You and I can't do what Beethoven do, deaf or not deaf. What they mean by classist and ableist is barring people like us from creating something as good as Beethoven with help from tools. If you think more calmly about it, it is indeed classist and ableist way of thinking.
Also btw, they're talking about using AI for editing and prrofereading, not for the writing part of it. It's very apparent on their wording of it, despite not being clearly specified. I'm honestly baffled that some supposed professionals at writing companies failed to see it.
Beethoven wasn't born deaf. He became deaf due to an illness as he got older. He wrote pieces while deaf, but would use a pencil pressed against the piano and in his mouth to go through each note.
@@FalloutUrMum exactly my point. Beethoven didn't born deaf, but he's born with high talent in musical comprehension.
Anyone who thinks that just about anyone can learn to be as good as Beethoven are delusional. To reach the height Beethoven, we need both talent and hard work. No amount of hard work will get anyone to Beethoven's height of musical sense, if they don't have talent for it.
You have no idea how many of my friends work really hard learning foreign language, and still got 7 or 8 out of 10...while I get 10/10 by lazing around. Yes, I'm rather talented in language comprehension, I'm very naturally capable in that area. Talent matters...and I'm not about to tell my friends who struggles with foreign languages despite their genuine hard work to not use translators for their job.
That's why, I firmly believe that we shouldn't tell people not to use AI tool to do editor and proofreader job, when they're underrepresented and had no money to hire human for the job.
@@Naradan2.0 You can do what Beethoven did though, all the evidence shows you just need to grind from a very young age.
I'll attach links to the research.
@@Naradan2.0 A choice quote from the research: "Consistently and overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born."
So ghost writers should be considered similar to Ai?
I love that a Book Baby ad played after this.
Best thing to do when someone doesn't list a specific reason not to or to use something, assume the more moral option as their intention. So if they weren't specific about which Ai (I write it this way to not confuse it with "AL", since a capital "i" looks like a lower case "l"), and there are two types, assume they are talking about the helpful Ai tools rather than the cheating generative Ai programs.
Since one type makes human creativity easier and the other doesn't use a human element in it's creation, it is easy to see which one a judging platform would side with.
Question; let’s say I wrote a novel on my own but I needed to erase thousands of words to cut the word count down. Can I use AI as a prompt to erase words. Keep in mind that when you ask it to erase thousands of words, it sometimes changes some words around. Is that allowed?
@@Justafox305 I would ask it to suggest and mark where it should remove, instead of allowing it to do so. I would also have it explain why.
On the paid version of GPT, you can upload documents, so you can also have it reference the page number so you can determine for yourself if you agree.
@@ChelissaMoon thanks so much for the tip
@@Justafox305 you’re welcome! Hope it works well!
Who has the moral authority to decide if that is allowed or not? And who gave it to them?
Thank you for posting! It feels like NaNo is saying in subtext that less advantaged people can't write good books. Okay, almost none of us write good books in first draft--but AI can't fix that. Connecting with other writers and readers later does.
During a past NaNoWriMo one participant bragged they'd done something like 1.6 million words. They did it by daily copy/pasting text from random web pages into a single Word document. Then claiming that document was their effort for that November. Completely misses the point. NaNoWriMo has always been about writing your own words---not editing, compiling, or whatever. *Your words, produce them.*
Bullet point @8:02 First, what does this have to do with producing words? Second, many times I've seen agents stating they wanted submissions from persons of color (although not exclusively). This bullet point is clear discrimination against minorities because it implies they are too child-like, too stupid, or too poor to get published.
Condemnation of AI is ableist in the same sense that gamers telling each other to Get Good is ableist. 😂
Please note AI is in its infancy, it will displace many occupations including authors and screen writers. Not a new phenomena, but one that might make for a great storyline. Sounds like a great outline for November!
Thanks for the clarity, Alyssa. I think this highlights something important for writers, which is to remember no two of us sit down to work with the same resources or tools. A writer who doesn't use ChatGPT, might be using a spouse or assistant to help them research, bounce ideas off of, or read their work. No one asks a writer if their husband helped them with their manuscript, but the hysteria over AI is real. Perhaps _Doctor Who_ and those scary Daleks are to blame.
Why are you robbing yourself of the opportunity of learning or improvement? You might as well not even write, because it's not you writing if you're having something write for you. Creating anything is a process that takes effort, it's not hysteria to dislike laziness because it's causing people like you to get selfish and lazy and to essentially steal the work's of others (Where do you think those data bases that AI pulls from come from?). No one wants to read something a machine made, or view any form of media that a machine made. You can't even call that work your work.
I'm of the opinion that using AI to create a first draft is perfectly fine so long as you provide it with good direction. I've used it to write a few novels now and even with good careful direction, the prose it produces can be rather mechanical at times. Then at other times, it can be pretty outstanding. That being said it can never replace the human elements that need to go into a good story. Thus the author needs to absolutely edit the prose heavily and multiple times until it's polished out just like any other book. It needs to go through at least two to three rereads and rounds of edits before you even can consider submitting it to an agent or a publisher, and even then just like any other book, it should get even more edits. AI writing is a good tool, but it's honestly one that does get abused a lot by the average person who is just trying to get into the writing field. Ad that is what is hurting its reputation. Perhaps instead of trying to stone-wall AI writers, teach them how to take that generated content and edit it into something original.
As a side note here, I think the whole notion of getting angry that AI is being taught with other people's work is ridiculous. When an artist is learning how to create art, they study other artists and try to copy them. It's considered an accepted learning technique to try to forge another artist's work flawlessly to learn how to do it yourself. The same goes for writing. When I wrote my first book, I thought first about who I wanted to write like, then I went and studied their writing style and emulated their exact style. No one taught me how to write, I had to teach myself, and I did it by copying other authors. And I'm willing to bet good money that almost every single author has done the exact same thing when they first started writing, and may even still do it to this day. So getting on AI's case for literally doing the same thing, is extremely hypocritical. But again, instead of being Karens about AI writing, which we should all accept isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future, Teaching others how to use it responsibly might be a better long-term plan than getting angry about it.
TBH, thier arguments rang true to me and my situation. Almost felt like they were talking about me a times, almost creepy.
I not doing NANOWRIMO again. I was told They always begging for donations. .
As a welder, the closest trade in my opinion to an art. I work within sight of welding robots. You can't stand in the way of progress. I had to meld my art with the automation.
my question is how will human writers prove that they wrote something going forward as ai continues to improve
there are already AI tools to humanize AI writing
how can humans prove that they created and wrote their book
without there being a way to prove that a book was written by a human, there won't be any way to keep AI out of the space
I'm not saying it's impossible and that it's a lost cause for humans to try to curate human work and to keep it separate from AI generated work I'm just thinking out loud about whether or not it's possible and if it is what does it look like
I'm 100% for a seal of approval for human writing but I just don't know how we get there from here now that AI is out of the bag - again assuming that AI will only continue to improve
My manuscript is handwritten with dates and everything. That's my proof. But not everyone likes longhand. You make a really valid point.
@@Rusthate101 I've started my project on paper as well - actually I started it in Google docs but I've moved to paper
what's your story about? 📜
What are your thoughts on authors working on their drafts live on a live stream? With the actual document on screen showing their words being written down as they type them. Artists do full pieces from original sketch to a final product on live streams. Maybe authors should consider doing the same. One gripe could be that writers don't want their ideas being stolen. But with how copyright works, at least in America, the second you write something down it's considered as a copyright and protected from plagiarism. You can also make a separate recording of the stream just to be safe. A lot of writers will probably think it's a crazy idea and not worth the risk, but I know I personally would be extremely interested in watching an author chip away at their latest book or novel live and in the moment, seeing their sentences put down as they type them and getting a glimpse into their mental process as they do it. I would find that extremely fascinating, and I think a lot of other people would too.
Sorry for the long response. This is just something that I've been thinking about lately. Maybe the era of the writer being looked upon as a "mystical" figure that works on their craft behind closed doors is behind us, now. Realistically, if an author hopes to find success in our modern world, scratching and clawing just to break through all the noise and constant spectacle that so easily harnesses our attention, we have to be open to being just as much internet celebrities as we are strange and reclusive writers. Maybe AI is ultimately doing all of us a favor and is going to force us out of our shells and out into the world to be gawked at. It's going to be hard to accuse someone of using AI when you can just go onto their page and literally see them work and sweat over every word and comma live and in full spectacle.
It's still pretty easy to tell AI writing when it comes to novels. It just lacks the human author's personal style and emotion
Thank you I loved this video ❤
Nano No No.
It sounds to me as though it' relates to AI as it is now commonly used for editing, mainly the free downloads without subscription, such a Grammarly, ProWritingAid, or Microsoft editor that comes with Word for grammar and spellcheck. I doubt AI could write a satisfactory 50k book that anyone would want to read, though it could give a story outline for those stuck with ideas.
I use prowritingaid for spell check and grammar. Every now and then for sentence structure if one is really bad and can't think a way around it. Besides, several agents do ask if AI is being used.
I've encountered that, with two or three agents out of 100 in my submission process asking Y/N to using AI on their QueryManager. That's kind of like asking football players if they've ever smoked weed. As a coach, I think I'd be more worried about the athletes morally opposed to it than those who'd tried it.
@@joevaldez6457 Yeah, it is a bit surprising, but at the same time kind of a fair question to see if you put effort into your work. Since AI can do so much now, that you can sit back and just let it do it for you.
If you like the trackability of NaNo, here's an easy spreadsheet recipe to track your daily word count:
Column A: Date
Column B: (fx=C:C - D:D)
Column C: The number of words you have today
Column D: The number of words you had yesterday
Column B will calculate your daily word count so you can see how close you are to 1663, or whatever number you're going for
What I use generative Ai for, is creating character backstories, world history and lore, and random locations. Then I tweak them to my liking. It's a way to get an idea of what I want and speeding up the process. I start out with an inkling of what I'm looking for in general. Then I populate the world with random characters and fine tune their characteristics. After that I just need to decide which one of them will be the main character based on their personalities.
I understand most people prefer to flesh out the details themselves, I would do it too, but I don't have the energy or the patience at this point in my life. Until my emotional burnout get better, I'll be using Ai as a supplement.
To clarify, I have never done a NaNoWriMo. If I do, I understand that using generative Ai even for world building would be cheating, as the entire point of the exercise is to speed up my own world building without help.
I've wanted to write since childhood. I've wanted to have a formal education in writing. But, real life got in the way.. I'm older now, and I am now struggling through my first novel. I "say" struggle because it's frustrating not remembering all rules of writing, such as punctuation, grammar, and such. I've always read a lot, so that helps, but it doesn't solve my problems. It has now been years since I started my first novel because I had to slowly learn or relearn what I needed. I wanted to try this thing called AI and did. I found it more baffling than my own struggles. It seemed to want to take away the voice of my characters and to take away my own voice as an author. I turned it off and never used it or will use it again. I haven't had my book edited yet because I'm still doing my own editing. And I'll deal with needing an outside editor when the time comes. I just hope that when the time comes, my editor(s) won't be relying on AI themselves. But that's a struggle for another day.
Thanks for sharing about nanowrimo. I've wanted to try my hand at it, but figured, why bring on more struggles for myself. Im glad, now, that I stayed away.
By the way, I've always known that the struggle makes you stronger. So I say - bring it on!
I've seen a lot of people preparing to do alternate challenges in November, or do the 50k in a month that works better for them. The MLs for my region have also stepped down from their roles. It's a crazy situation to be in rn.
I have been using gpt to help me draft my novel for several months now. From first hand experience, AIs are still dumb and there is a lot of manual editing to do, sometimes whole chapters cant be written with a generative AI. I use those tools because I consider myself a bad writer, but there is a story that has been cooking in my mind since 2016 and I need to put it in words.
Imagination is a threat to the powers that be.
It's called creative destruction - not in the sense of destroying creativity, but as destruction that leads to better creations. There is no stopping it.
can i use a series as a comp title?
Yeah, my friend Christi from Kumate Works has done that challenge
We are on the verge of what could be humanity's greatest revolution, much more powerful than the industrial revolution. We still don't know how to regulate it yet (like when children worked in factories every day of the week). I remain expectant (but always on the side of the workers and the fight for decent work/creativity).
In AI honest opinion, AI is revolutionizing the writing world by offering tools for grammar and style checking, generating content, enhancing creativity, providing language translations, and personalizing reading experiences, thereby making writing more accessible and efficient for diverse audiences. NaNoWriMo might be looking to open up the writing world to non-professional writers like me who use AI assistance to express their creativity. The contest is supposed to be a fun thing that allows writers to use their imaginations with or without the help of AI assistance. It took me a while to train my AI assistant, but now it knows exactly my style and tone of my creative writing. PEACE AND LOVE.
It is true that there is a massive bias against writers who don't write well. Story tellers who are bad at telling stories need to be elevated in the writing space. For too long our society has given preference to people who put in the work and are good at what they do and it needs to STOP!
Great post, Alyssa! Of course, publishers are in business, and presumably want to publish whatever will sell, including AI generated fiction. But, writers are creative beings (I hope) and writing is a passion, so AI undermines that if a writer uses it to generate the manuscript. Let's keep AI out off all the creative arts, as far as the actual creation is concerned. Of course, movies use AI to enable the storytelling, but it should the storytelline. I've used AI with delight for research and to learn many new things on many topics. But, I want the words on the page to be mine. Otherwise, what's the point?
I've watched several videos on this topic, and I think this the most reasonable and fair assessment. Thanks for making it! I appreciate you mentioning different types of AI. That AI tools for editing are distinct from generative tools. I find AI grammar tools helpful, but also expensive.
I've seen a lot of discussion on this topic condemning all AI tools equally. But you rightly pointed out that the note from NaNoWriMo did not specify the type of AI, which is a shortcoming of their statement.
I use grammarly but the only time I use AI like ChatGPT is for research. For one of my books I needed to know information like how the Milwaukee Police Department was structured and the process for choosing who gets a donor organ. It was very helpful there but for another book I wanted to know the approximate weight of a certain sized meteorite but its answer was ridiculously low.
I mean this genuinely, but why did you need GPT for that? Why not simply look up the Milwaukee police on a search engine or search for "organ donation process"?
I've been a member of many writers' groups which were free to join. There's plenty of good free assistance for writers out there. If you can go online to use AI tools, you can find a good online critique group.
You COULD use AI to write an an entire book and the only thing stopping us from doing that is not condemnation but the fact that book would be terrible.
Good use of AI:
“Give me 5 ideas for a sympathetic villain who hates magic wielders.”
Bad use of AI:
Write me the a complete backstory for a sympathetic villain that hates magic.
And when I say good and bad, I’m not referring to ethics but the quality of results. AI is a great collaborator, it does not remove the need for a good writer.
As a reader I do not care by whom a book is written as long as I enjoy it.
I think trying to stop AI development is futile. I also dislike actors who force a ban on AI in filming. Have they forgot that film-cameras threatened theater-actors? What if the unions back then had said no to any filming?
As long as human writers and actors produce better stories they have nothing to be afraid of.
I say writers need to find creative ways of beating AI at its own game. Show that you are a real creative artist by using the greatest powers we have: subtext, metaphorical analogies, creative ways of symbolic thinking etc.
If you want to use AI go ahead. Just means you are limiting your own pure creativity, and if not specified that you use AI you will be a fraud unto yourself.
It's actually worse than that, though. Generative AI works by probability, what the next word is LIKELY to be. Which means it's DESIGNED to be generic. You aren't going to get any groundbreaking or truly unique material out of it.
Had high hopes for nanowrimo. I wanted to be apart of organizing events to help others have a venue to write in should they choose. Sometimes there are moments where writing in a group is exciting and beneficial to the writing process. I was largely ignored and have turned away from the organization. I enjoy writing but now im thinking I no longer have a platform.
It’s good to know where they stand, and I will reconcile my own values against theirs, but I only ever used their site as a guidepost to track my word count-both year to year, and over time. I’m probably not boycotting them entirely. Even if I don’t like what they said, which I interpreted as basically wanting everyone to make their own informed decision.
There are also communities that are doing their own version of NaNo. I know Writing Quests is working on Beta Testing their tracker for November's Novel Quest for writing groups to use during their own challenges. With Flexibility to allow writing, editing, or some combo of both, the tracker should be a great tool for writers doing a writing challenge.
Why is it that authors are upset? Do they feel AI writes better than they do? Do they feel there will be an over saturation where people will want to purchase AI generated content over their books? If these are the causes of the fear and AI is able to produce better content why not use it to produce better content? If these factors aren’t the issue then what are they worried about? Obviously AI is becoming a part of human civilization and probably isn’t going anywhere, so rather than complain or fight it, why not use it to its full advantage if this advantage exists? As for the issue of using people’s content for training without permission, that seems to be how society currently works. All corporations benefit from the time, sweat and ideas of the humans who make it all possible. The whole purpose of profit is to exploit others for self advancement. To me it seems that the financial system itself is what people are upset about. If everyone could live comfortably it probably wouldn’t be an issue of what technologies people use. What are your thoughts?
As an avid novel reader, this video kinda baffled me.
From what I can see, from what you present yourself in this video, I think NaNoWriMo organizers are talking specifically about the use of AI tools for things like editing and proofreading, not for the physical process of the writing part of it. They doesn't seem to be talking about using AI tools for writing the whole novel itself.
It does takes a lot of money to hire good editors and proofreaders, which is why they said it's rather classist and ableist to oppose the use of AI. Indie writers without access to literary agents, can't have access to "free" editors and proofreaders provided by publishing companies. Learning language as non-native speaker also not free, and even native speakers are more often than not are so bad at their own language's rules. Education are more often than not not free.
Yes, they didn't specify it on their writing...but does all editors and writers that daft in reading comprehension to read between the lines? do you need everything to be that specified? I can easily spot it, how can you the supposed professional in the industry failed to see it?
If they wanted to be specific, they would have been specific. The vagueness is intentional. They weren't rushing to meet a deadline; hell, they could have never said anything at all and nobody would have noticed. They took exactly as much time as they needed to craft this post, and said exactly what they intended to say, including in their little edit (which was still intentionally vague). They *want* people to "read between the lines" and assume that NaNo isn't *really* talking about ocean-boiling Large Larceny Models. But they are. If they weren't, they had plenty of time to put together a statement on their own platform that clearly said they weren't.
"Does all [youtube commenters] that daft in reading comprehension [sic]" that you don't pay attention to what a person consciously chooses NOT to say?
And is it a coincidence that the sponsor they just spent a month spam emailing everyone about has a paid tier with genAI writing assistance?
@@theunluckybard7517 they don't have to be that specific. There is also quite literally no vagueness at all, as they've already said in one of their letter that writing a whole novel with AI is silly. They don't need to be specific on every single writings, as all their writings are added to each others as a whole letter of statements. That's not to mention their latest writing itself, where they mention terms like "classist" and "ableist", is already clearly hinted by its wording toward talking about editing and proofreading AI tools.
Let me put it bluntly, it's not their responsibility to coddle you for your own lacking in reading comprehension by specifying it in every single letters they wrote. You're responsible with yourselves for being a better reader. Even more so if you're a writer or a so called professional in literary industry, be fucking professional, be less sensational and gossipy, be better. For starter, use less emotional judgment when reading letters, it helps.
@@Naradan2.0 Oh, ok, so you're just here to be an asshole and argue. Or maybe you really DO think Public Relations communications are 100% true with no reading-between-the-lines required. Either way, enjoy your ChatGPT novel, I'm sure it'll do great.
@@Naradan2.0 uh… i agree w some of what you said.
To me they were better off not saying anything at all or stopping after their first explanation
@@MrEvldreamr I can agree with what you said. Too much unnecessary explanations and "argumentative statements" are sometimes more detrimental than beneficial. NaNoWriMo would've definitely been better if they just didn't post anything about it beyond their first statement at all.
The use of words such as "classist" and "ableist" also does makes many emotional readers forgo their logic and critical thinking in favor of their emotion.
No! You're not allowed to use AI to do your editing!!! You have to pay me instead!!!
😂
As a South African, writing from a country with a bad currency exchange rate, I would argue that allowing AI-tools greatly increases privilege and classism. How are we to compete in a market with cheap tools available to US citizens, but with dollar payments that make it exorbitantly expensive in most African and other lesser developed countries. This is an excellent example of virtue-signalling policy decisions without proper research, eating its own tail. Writing used to be the great artistic equaliser for all countries and peoples. Your tools used to be a pen, a brain and an earth-shattering message and you could become anything, anywhere. This is what makes writing special and magical. we need to protect and cherish this. Imagine Chinua Achebe's ground-breaking African novella Things Fall Apart if run through an American AI. It would eat up all the subtle, beautiful colloquial language nuances and spit out something bland and generic resembling the plot of Lion King.
There might be a logistics issue at the heart of their decision here. Even a limited stance against AI would require NaNoWriMo organizers to monitor for infractions and make disqualification decisions if even the smallest portion of a story is written with generative AI. The organization probably doesn't have the time, resources, or will to go through that hassle, so they've chosen this route to avoid such headaches. The reasons they give for this decision sound nice, but it could be a smokescreen to avoid extra work the volunteers didn't sign up for.
Sorry Alyssa, I also agree that AI is too broad a technology to outright condemn. Autocorrect in Microsoft word is “AI”. Language translation can be easily achieved with AI. Speech to text translation is an “AI” tech that could enable people who would otherwise be excluded from writing, especially with a tight deadline.
Plus I can think of some scenarios where generative AI could genuinely assist an author, with specific emphasis on class. You could use it to understand an experience that is outside of your financial means; going on holiday, sailing a yacht, driving a racing car, eating in a fancy restaurant, etc. This could help make a scene more realistic to the audience.
Traditional publishing is flipping out about AI because it is a major threat to their power structure and, most importantly, their money. ChatGPT is spectacular at Line Editing...especially when you give specific parameters and edit more yourself.
The only reason I'd use AI with my writing is to use it as a spell-checker/editor for what I've written.
As someone who has a mental disorder herself i find it condescending to say not wanting AI in the writing room is abelist or classist first off for as long as i been in special ed i do not want to use AI in my writing despite going to special ed classes i can write storys, poems thank you very much
This video on the latest AI controversy is a great analysis as it both informative and succinct.
this video format suits me a lot
Um... Either I'm really stupid or virtually nobody has read any AI-generated novels. I mean, all I've seen were crap! The current level of AI seems unable to manage vital things like voice, character arcs, theme... I'm even questioning it can manage structure or tempo. Unless you do HEAVY editing (and then, who really wrote the thing?)
A side note: AI is a terrible misnomer, it's a large language model (LLM or if you want to, Machine Learning/ML)... the closest to intelligence would be to think of it as a dreaming mind that just spits out stuff that is a bit more coherent than an actual dream (unless you're generating pictures... then it can easily turn into a nightmare... or, of course, it starts hallucinating when it shouldn't or doesn't when it should...)
But as the video says, you may not need the organization to do it. And I always thought of NaNoWriMo as a kind of 1 month forum/group session focused on writing 50k words (I haven't actually done one myself, so I could be dead wrong). Having some guy that generated their 50k words on day one is neither going to be useful in that discussion, nor would they likely participate that much in it, or motivate anyone etc. Though, maybe there is a use case for future groups that spend the month trying to figure out how to prompt the LLM to get the best novel... that's another kind of creativity, I guess... but as mentioned... good luck with that...
Maybe the whole text from NaNoWriMo was generated by Gemini trying to be super PC?
However, on the ableist comment... what if someone who would never have been able to write a novel manages to do it with AI? What would that do to their self-image? What if they figured out how to make it good? I mean, I too have been writing novels while being disabled, but that's because I CAN so that comment is really beside the point here... the point is if AI would give us new interesting voices in literature... (Though, that would likely be in 10-20-30 years... whenever the LLM hype is over and work can progress along more sane paths...)
Everything comes down to the quality of the finished product. Not using AI is now a handicap that will leave you in the dust.
This is just another example of why I hate the writing business. I am not entirely sure writing was ever supposed to be a business. It is kind of like being in the 'walking business'. Fundamentally, walking is a means to an end, other than walking itself. One may enjoy walking, and some may actually be better at it than others, and at the end of the walk is a destination. One could argue the destination is all that truly counts. But the destination is the culmination of the walk itself. No matter how you cut it, taking a cab instead is not the same thing. It does not entail the same experience, and the destination experience will inevitably reflect that difference. Regardless of efficiency or expedience, taking a cab is not a walk. Fin. Fin of what, exactly? Writing is not the only profession doomed to die of self-inflicted wounds. There is little comfort, but at least some sympathy in that melancholy fact. Write for other reasons.
awesome!!