You make an important point about the difference between a work of art, and a piece of artwork. Machines have been making pieces of artwork for a long time. Monkeys, dogs and elephants have also got involved. But a work of art is about human communication.
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I’ve decided to run the marathon from my home office desk. #competingfromhome
Or, at least hire a human ghostwriter.
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Also, many “real pieces of work” are human, too. Let’s keep it that way and say no to Antisocial AI! 
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Quick reminder that it’s been less than a year since the last major NaNoWriMo scandal, in which they sent a bunch of teen writers to get groomed by a pedophile website.
Also, trying to write a novel in November is fucking madness. I really don’t know how they ever hit on the idea of trying to get people to write a novel during one of the busiest months of the year…
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I already had it write a story about how I ran three marathons this morning, solving a different crime in each one, and also some romantic comedy in the middle one. I’ll tweak the sci-fi third later, but I’m a fit, lean trilogy writer now, since 9am, and all I did was eat biscuits and cheat like a motherfucker.
I’m the best.
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Yeah. The vibe I’m getting right now from all the writers I follow is that NaNoWriMo is basically lost all credibility with everything that’s gone on over the last year. It sucks, but I’m not terribly surprised by any of it.
Their stance on AI use is incredibly disappointing. Beyond the sponsorship deal with ProWritingAid, this stance doesn’t make any sense. They’re going to inundated with AI books as a result of this, kind of like Clark’s World was last year… only NaNo are asking for the deluge.
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yup. nobody submits their novel at the end. very few of them ever get read even by friends and family. the whole point is personal goals and self expression.
and honestly, using llms in that context i think wouldn’t be a problem… except for its use of other author’s works without permission
eta:
see the above. there’s no deluge. the whole interface for tracking completion is a daily check-in on the web where you self-report the number of words you wrote
people on the forums admit to just writing the same word over and over again when they get blocked
it’s been a weird and lovely competition up until the moment they didn’t know how to deal with sex offenders trying to become moderators 
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… it’s the new thing
Whatever we were going to do anyway is now being done on behalf of the Most Vulnerable™
Sacramento faces class-action disability lawsuit over homeless camps blocking sidewalks
Portland crews remove 1,408 homeless campsites under ADA lawsuit settlement
How a Landmark Law To Protect the Rights of Disabled People Is Being Twisted To Oppress Others
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Ah. Got it. For some reason I thought it was a bit more formal than that. It’s been a long time since I’ve looked too closely at the competition beyond supporting friends who are doing it. I’ve also always been far too aware of my own limitations to actively participate in the event.
It does feel like they’re stripping away whatever was left of their credibility with this move, though. I dunno. I might just be bitter about the overall impact the low quality words AI churns out has had on my profession.
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Apart from a catchy name, what does NaNoWriMo actually have? Answer: a community of dedicated people it has just royally pissed off to please a sponsor.
Given it’s not that long since there were serious grooming allegations against one of their forum mods - and many other issues - this was already a tarnished brand.
A real shame, I know some people who really valued the companionship it brought during its early years.
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Silicon Valley would like us all to forget about the people in the developing world who are employed in insecure underpaid jobs to review sickening content in order to build LLM guard rails:
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The other day I saw a photo of a park bench with a gap in the middle and a wheelchair sign. Of course it is really a piece of “hostile architecture” designed to stop homeless people sleeping on the bench.
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They could use exactly the same “argument” for straight-up (traditional) plagiarism, and it would make as much sense. Hell, traditional plagiarism would be better, as at least you could pick sentences that are actually good, and you’d still be making aesthetic choices about everything that went into “your” book (that you’d completely cede to AI).
How classist! Not everyone can afford cabs, you know! (/s)
At some point the software that produces work is itself arguably the artwork. Which means whoever created the software is the artist, not the “user” (who is the equivalent of a tourist taking a picture of the Mona Lisa).
Yeah, if you don’t have the time or mental ability to write a book, then don’t write a book. Write a short story, write social media posts, write poetry, make (other) art. If a given form doesn’t work with your limitations, use a different form that does. Invent a form, if you have to. It’s not like financially the form makes a difference and anyone is being blocked from making a living if they can’t write books (there’s no money in writing books either).
They’re saying more than that, as their sponsor is a generative AI company that “helps” writers rephrase/expand on their text. Which is an absolutely terrible idea that doesn’t ultimately help writers at all. But “use Grammarly if you have to” also isn’t great. Terrible advice for a professional book, but also an amateur - they shouldn’t be telling authors (would-be or actual) to use software to smooth out their voice into some standardized English. They should be telling would-be writers to embrace their own voices, as imperfect as they are. That’s an important part of writing fiction. I mean, sure, if you’re “writing a book” but don’t intend anyone else to ever read it, then go ahead and “use whatever tools you need to” because it’s a completely masturbatory exercise and no one needs to see what you’re wanking with. If you want to involve other people at some point, then it does matter.
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Ableist? Classist? Gaslighting much?
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It’s equivalent to claiming that because I made the paint and my neighbor made the canvas that we’re the artists and not your dog or cat. 
More seriously, just having your fingerprint on the raw materials into doesn’t count by me. (as I’ll explain in a moment)
I don’t wish to dwell on the legal ramifications. But my own take on the philosophical aspect of what is art, is that there has to be some intent in the work to communicate something. And some people feel that the artist has to think of it as art as well, that’s a little more controversial and I could go either way. My definition is too broad for some and to narrow for others, and I’m not away of any universally accepted definition of art.
But by my own definition, if an AI makes it. and nobody didn’t edit it, filter it, contextual it, or otherwise put intent into it. Then it’s not art.
Even if the intent is so minimal as to be that the “artist” chose from two AI generated pieces and picked one to present to you as art. Subjectively that’s pretty shitty art though, if the artist is only willing to express a binary opinion between “Meh” and “Yah”. I failed to be moved. 
If a programmer makes some kind of deep learning, “AI”, or otherwise generative piece of software. It’s math. It’s a formula. It’s an algorithm. Some software is in itself art, but it usually isn’t. Rarely is the stuff I write art.
But to the original point. Just because someone made the tools to generate pretty pictures. Doesn’t mean the original programmer is expressing their own intent into those pictures. And I don’t think the guy that wrote my compiler thinks that I owe them credit.
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I have an acquaintance that has been spending a lot of time creating a set of instructions for an LLM that will get it to generate a story.
He is quite sensitive to comments against LLMs and their ilk, so I haven’t bothered telling him that what I think he’s doing is creating a jigsaw puzzle solver. It doesn’t choose what it wants as an image, it doesn’t create the image, it doesn’t create the cutting pattern that makes a puzzle from the image-all it does it solve the puzzle really, really fast. And often incorrectly. Not enough pieces, the edges don’t match, some parts are upside down…
And why this idea that everybody ought be able to do everything? I’m a short, fat, unathletic white woman. Should I get upset when I have no jump and can’t play even a pick-up game of basketball? Another friend has cerebral palsy and can only type with one finger for short bursts. He’s managed to get published in several languages, and new editors are contacting him all of the time. He doesn’t even like speech to text programs, much less getting the software to “write” anything.
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“A generative tool is the same as paint” is only a useful analogy if the paint creates its own canvas and then arranges itself on it, though. A dog or cat getting paint on a surface is doing something else entirely.
My own background is in fine arts, where both the artist having an intent is assumed, but also the intention is frequently seen as rather suspect as a criteria for something being art. In the fine art context, work functions as art, and work is contextualized as art, either/both of which are criteria for something being considered art. The AI can’t really do any of those things, of course. A programmer can set up a generative system with those things in mind, however, making the generative itself system art (and the output of that system, at best, merely the residue, the byproduct, of the art process, but which can be commodified and treated similarly to art on a commercial level).
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Which was always part of the challenge. Being able to squeeze a creative accomplishment in around holidays, a conference, or major home reno was a reminder that sitting around waiting for idyllic situations for the muse to show up isn’t a reality for many. Real life doesn’t take breaks, so why not try?
A pity. I should have canceled my account last year, but now I’m done with the org. I appreciate that it gave me the excuse to write those hasty, shitty first drafts, but boy: talk about lining up your other foot after shooting one in 2023.
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