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The literary world is rife with constant controversy, from the Bad Art Friend to the BookForum comeuppance of long-lauded critic Lauren Oyler. A recent point of contention, however, is no interpersonal drama or nitpicky review. Rather, it’s a Zendesk article from the minds behind NaNoWrimo — National Novel Writing Month — stating that the organization will permit AI usage as part of the event this year (and presumably for all future years).
Needless to say, this ruffled a few feathers. And to be fair, it would be one thing to simply look the other way while people “write” novels using AI and use them to “win” NaNo… but to outright sanction the practice is another matter entirely.
What do we lose (or gain?) by ceding to the onslaught of AI in these creative contexts? Can AI truly be a valuable tool for authors — and exert a net positive influence on the literary world as a whole? A number of writers and artists (in real life, on social media, and in major media outlets) have attempted to answer these questions recently. As a writer, creator, and avid fiction enthusiast, I have a few thoughts of my own.
AI’s poor track record in writing circles
The NaNo controversy is not the first time that AI usage in creative writing has come under fire from writers, educators, and other invested parties.
One incident that comes to mind was when Clarkesworld, a long-running science fiction/fantasy magazine, had to close down submissions because they were receiving too many AI-generated stories. I also recall a micro-debate in writing circles earlier in the year about whether AI should be used to write “filler” descriptions in a novel; on one hand, it saves time for the writer, but on the other, does that mean they wouldn’t even necessarily know what’s in their own book?
And if you’re someone (like me) who gets a lot of suggested posts from teachers on X, you’ll know that AI policies in course syllabi have become an extremely hot topic. Most teachers do seem to prefer a blanket ban on AI for coursework, not least because if students are given an inch, they’ll take a mile — but also because, more crucially, “the purpose of education isn’t to pass exams, [but] to become someone who can read deeply, communicate, and think.” (Another now-deleted X post raised concerns that so many people “[seem to] believe that the purpose of assigning [student essays] is to increase the number of essays in the world.”)
But what, indeed, of an event like NaNoWriMo — where participation is purely voluntary and purportedly to hone one’s individual process, rather than to provide a framework for group learning to a classroom of children (or very young adults)? For those of us with fully devel …