Morris, another member on NaNo’s writers’ board, learned of the announcement Monday morning from a friend’s Facebook post. She took immediate action, publicly cutting ties with the organization and even deleting her decades-old NaNo account. “I have a very hard line when it comes to these generative AI programs,” she says.
In a blog post, Morris elaborated on the concerns she has about AI in innovative work: The platforms are unethical, the technology takes content from published authors without paying royalties or fees, and writers lose the opportunity to find their voice and learn from their mistakes. Every time another organization teams up with an AI platform, she feels defeated. “It’s a fight that creative people have to fight on multiple fronts, and it’s exhausting,” she says.
Longtime participants, some of whom have been involved with NaNo for decades, are also feeling the effects of what they believe is another betrayal by the organization, which they say has ignored ongoing issues with the platform and alienated members and volunteers.
Jenai May has been a NaNo participant for more than two decades, and for half of that time she has been a volunteer leader, also known as a city liaison, in her region. NaNoWriMo typically boasts a volunteer force of nearly 800 leaders and coordinators, but many of them have recently left the organization, according to several sources.
May credits NaNoWriMo with giving her the confidence she needed to believe she could write a book. “I went through such a powerful inner transformation that I dedicated 10 years of my life to year-round volunteer work.”
May herself is neuroatypical and says many writers in her region are indigent or disabled. “The NaNoWriMo attitude that poor and disabled writers should use AI to write well and be successful is disgusting. And calling critics of AI ableists and classists is really weird,” she says.
Rebecca Thorne, a YA fantasy writer who has been participating in NaNoWriMo since 2008, started using TikTok when she was a teenager viral video which is an expression of outrage towards NaNo for ignoring the public sentiment around AI and filling their statement with “politically correct language, making it impossible to argue with their position.”
Thorne met some of her closest friends at NaNo-sponsored “write-ins” and events, and she still treasures those bonds. She was shocked by a part of NaNo’s statement that seemed to compare being economically disadvantaged to having to consult an AI for facilitate. “The whole point of NaNo was that you met other people and you didn’t pay them. You exchanged work amicably,” she says. “You say you don’t need people to work on your art, but art is inherently human. We can’t rely on technology to do that work for us.”