can't we just write books?

here are my thoughts on NaNoWriMo's statements on AI, as well as some other world ending doomsdayness. Stay creative out there!
Daniel's video: • NaNoWriMo Says You're ...
The TikTok I showed: www.tiktok.com...
Some FREE places to get critiques and writing help:
beta reading: / betareaders
trad pub advice: / @ginadenny
indie pub advice: / @heartbreathings
/ @bethanyatazadeh
critique partner match-up: forms.gle/ZCkM...
#nanowrimo #ai

[@alyssa.and.the.books.]

I am a little rambly a few places here (especially on the general access point) but I think I wrap up my thoughts near the end of the video so please watch all the way through! Also, I would love to hear if you have a different perspective or if I'm missing the mark in any areas ♥

[@CodyTheWriter]

The fact that they didn’t take the time to plug their statement into an AI for a grammar check is wild.

[@alyssa.and.the.books.]

Truly

[@carultch]

You don't even need AI for that. The deterministic grammar check I had in high school in the 2000's, would've caught that error.

[@DenouementinAeternum]

Also the fact that AI models have been trained on other people’s writing (without the authors permission) just because it’s “publicly accessible data” is so wrong. Stories and ideas by authors have been stolen to train these AI language programs and now they are just regurgitating ideas and words that were stolen.

[@shyzunk]

Oh so I read a book and used it for inspiration to write my own, is that also wrong? If the writing ends up being so samey its almost the original, then it's not wrong, it's just bad writing not worth reading anyway. And all the copycat trend riding human books would also fall in the same category. Unimportant trash that some people with no standards still enjoy. Or AI is part of the process, a tool, but the result is unique. In that case, how is it different from inspiration we practiced since storytelling became a thing?

[@michelleciriaco9665]

There's also the fact that assuming that my brain, because it has a disability, is not capable of overcoming the obstacles that can be presented in the writing process is in itself a discriminatory point of view. Instead, offering tools, scholarships, training to help people with disabilities learn and improve their craft is the most inclusive way to approach the issue. Short-cutting the path instead of looking for ways to instruct by claiming that it is the best for disabled people is not only lazy but offensive. And don't even get me started on using people with fewer resources or disabilities as a reason to justify accepting AI money... disgusting.

[@tayh.6235]

Every person has the right to create art. That came free with your humanity. No one has the right to be able to create the specific way they want to. I would like to be able to draw without putting in the effort to learn, my drawing sucks, I don't have a right to rip off other people's art and pretend it's mine.

[@lynndjung]

I'm screaming at the underrepresented authors point??? Why would institutional discrimination in tradpub drive marginalized writers to use AI?? WHAT?? (Ty for making this video and being a voice of reason as always 💗)

[@alyssa.and.the.books.]

Right???? I feel like I couldn't even make a good point because I was so FRAZZLED

[@xXESproductionsXx]

If people want to discuss if AI is stealing work from real writers/artists/musicians, then I get that. I think AI in it's current form does steal from copyrighted works and it should be regulated. What I DO NOT understand is how people can think that putting in a prompt and having the computer generate a story/art/music makes them a writer/artist/musician. It doesn't. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. It's the same as asking someone on fiverr to make you something.

[@BigDaddyJinx]

People also need to remember that anything generated by AI is not qualified to be protected by copyright. And you can tell yourself all the livelong day that you're smarter than the system and you can beat the system and that "No one will ever find out" and you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. They always get found out. And if you lied and pretended that this was YOUR creation and in the end it turns out that it was AI generated...the damage done will be far worse than just having written/created something bad all on your own. Typing a "killer prompt" doesn't make you a writer any more than standing in a library makes you a book.

[@BigDaddyJinx]

​@@alpha1solace All valid and articulated for what you included there. If your goal is to call yourself a writer, and you rely on AI to do all the heavy lifting, then you're as much a writer as standing in a garage makes you a car. If an AI is used as a facilitator to bounce an idea off of, or to fish around for ideas (which again will likely be based on someone else's work used to train the model), or for grammar/spell checking and flow? Okay, I can maybe see an exception made for that use. It's superfluous to the process itself. You, the writer, still need to breathe life into your creation. You need the idea, this is the field. Then you plant the seeds. The world you build. The characters that inhabit that world. What kind of a world you live in. The interactions they have with that world. The dialogue exchanges they have with each other. Their drives and motivations. You need to breathe that life. Not AI. AI just uses derivative works from hundreds of other authors and REAL writers who came before you. You think that's a genuine fresh idea they spit out to you? HAH! No. It's a spin-off of someone else's work that came before you. It's as original as a photocopy. AI is a TOOL and should only ever be used as such. AI shouldn't ever be used as the vehicle itself. If you do use it for such, then you're as much a writer as I am an astronaut.

[@mccama19]

I don't know, I found all three arguments that NANOWRIMO used to support AI as kind of offensive. Their implying that if your poor, alt abled, or a minority, your writing would naturally have a lower quality so you would HAVE to use AI. I fall into all three groups, and I personally got really ticked off hearing their reasoning, but I can understand that people not in these groups might think these argument would be fine. Just because someone is different, doesn't mean their creativity is lower quality or has less value.

[@KrisMF]

thank you for covering this! it's wild to see nanowrimo's stance on ai though not surprising given their partnership with an ai writing tool. what pisses me off with the way ableism and classism is being weaponized in pro-ai arguments is that if the ppl/corporations who use these arguments did actually care about art and the systemic barriers in trad pub (which do disproportionately affect marginalized writers), their efforts would then be focused on fostering community + amplifying or creating free resources/workshops on craft, process and publishing knowledge that have historically been inaccessible. to become dependent on ai as an aspiring writer means people will never actually learn *how to* write. what gets generated will sound perfectly fine to them when it's actually quite bad to the trained eye lol. beyond that, ai doesn't "democratize" art - it just incentivizes faster output over human intention.

[@alyssa.and.the.books.]

Exactly! It's wild to me that their response suggests that a way to approach these huge systematic problems is to just 'let everyone use ai' as if it's some sort of equalizer when it's actually just a massive threat to EVERYONE

[@The_Writerly_Vibes]

100% agree with everything you said! It hurts my heart to see NaNoWriMo take that stance, and the way they justify it makes me want to throw up. Using AI is like buying cookies at the grocery store and telling everyone you made them. 🙄 Also... I'd love to see data on all of their claims.

[@NiveaK.]

I use grammarly to catch sentences that could be written better, typos, and grammar issues. I'm not that great at grammar so this helps me a lot. I don't see an issue with using AI that just does editing things like this. I think generative AI is what people have a problem with. Using an AI to write a book for you is obviously a problem.

[@alyssa.and.the.books.]

Totally agree!

[@katendress6142]

All they would have had to say is "we still don't care how you got the 50K words, and that includes AI." Writing the same word 50K times has always been counted as a win. Type in "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." five thousand times and it counts. Instead, they had to go out and wrap themselves in a security blanket of marginalized people's identities to preemptively silence their critics.

[@DebErelene]

Makes me wonder how many pages of fiction that have been checked for grammar, etc in ProWriting Aid has been directly used to train their AI, only to be sold back ... "We'll check your grammar for 'free'!" 🙄

[@Mariposa-rgb]

Visual artists and illustrators have been suffering this issue for long and it’s sad to see internet being saturated with low quality content

[@ChelseyFuredi]

I’m here for Alyssa’s commentery era

[@bonniehuh]

1:48 - "I have already separated Nanowrimo the Organization from Nanowrimo the Event." Yes. I like the events (Or even just the idea of the events) as it motivates me to write more and I like their website for personal writing progress--for the graphs and wordtracker and such. But I don't have friends or socialize at all on it. I never look at the store or the updates because I don't care anymore. Their opinion on anything doesn't matter to me anymore.

[@Fyrsiel]

Seems to me like using generative AI to write a novel isn't a means of engaging in creativity, it's just a way to entertain yourself. You're asking the machine to tell you a story, and you're not telling the story yourself.

[@SandySaysRead]

Professional magazine editor here: I will not accept freelance articles that are written by or with AI. I now have a form freelancers must fill out and sign stating they have written the article themselves. Also...two competing entities in my industry have used AI systems to comb the web and pull content my employer paid me to write for our website and place it in their own e-newsletters. Those e-newsletters generate advertising income for them. Essentially, my competition made money off my content by using AI to steal it. My employer isn't sure we can afford to sue/isn't sure it would be worth it. Until people are held accountable for theft, it will continue and grow. This is what "writers" are doing when they generate content with AI. There's an ethical component to this people need to consider.

[@BonnieNicoleWrites]

I am glad you are talking about this and calling out things, as well as talking about some of the nuance. I completely agree with you.

[@KittyBGaming]

Time to watch people ditch NaNiWriMo, which is deserved, and watch NaNiWriMo panic 🍿

[@caesuracrossing5473]

A lot of that statement is very icky.

[@mirandatheauthor]

thank you for making this video, well said 👏 that tiktok you showed was scary dude... i didn't realize people would be ballsy enough to think that was okay

[@TiaLove28]

thank you for posting this. yesterday was a dumpster fire!! i'll be doing NaNo without the website 🤷‍♀️

[@SherioCheers]

If Nanowrimo allows AI then Nanowrimo is no longer a legitimate challenge.

[@ByJasmineDayton]

So beautifully said on all points! I am disappointed with the way this has been approached by NaNoWriMo. I think many of the reasons they have chosen to publicly say about defending AI were as you mentioned simply easy excuses that they know are hard to combat without painting yourself to be the villain. But in a weird way they themselves are saying people of lower class and disabilities can't be creative? Bold of them to make this statement two months before November.

[@sherrylalonde5719]

To each their own, but it's not for me - and not for anyone who hopes to traditionally publish either. Nearly every lit. agent now has a clause upon signing that states you haven't used AI in any form to write your book. Their are sooo many other ways to prompt story ideas and creativity that for me, it's just not worth it.

[@ellieblackwell9754]

everyone wake up Alyssa posted

[@KathrynRisch]

I appreciate that you made the time to promote a nuanced discussion 🎉 yay nuance, seriously

[@FoxesParadoxes]

I can’t speak to the moral side of using an AI. But in Open AI’s terms of use it makes it explicitly clear that you own both the input (what you type) and output (what the AI spits out.)

[@ramonarobot]

Not everyone can self-publish and pay high fees to publish a professional, quality book. Fees for book cover designer, as well as editors for editorial assessment, copyediting and proofreading. Don’t even dream about paying a developmental editor. But with AI, I can have those done for almost free. Of course, the quality won’t be as great as professional human editors, but at least I have a chance to put out somewhat decent stuff.

[@katharinafisher394]

Great analysis, thank you!

[@marygracewriting]

I think there needs to be way more education on the differences between supportive AI and generative AI in the general public. I think when people hear the word AI they think it all means the same thing. AI can be a great tool but it should never take over the job of creativity itself. It will also never completely replace the need for human editors and partners in the writing process.

[@giantsbane8439]

The bigger problem with using AI for revising your writing is that for inexperienced writers, the AI will provide feedback that SOUNDS good / accurate, but actually isn't. So you'll potentially be trying to apply a bunch of inaccurate information. As for your points on AI models costing money sure, depending on what you're using they can. Typical subscriptions range from 10-20$ a month though, making it dramatically more accessible than hiring any kind of traditional editor (though also, far inferior). Other points of order here that I think a lot of people raging with regards to the potential use of AI with writing / etc, and that's primarily that published authors I know who've gone to try and utilize it to enhance their writing process wind up spending about the same amount of time writing a book using AI as they did without it, mostly because of the care / time editing and revising that was needed. I think the most important thing to consider here though is this not entirely unfounded fear of AI and job replacement, but most of the fears / anger seems to stem from a lot of fundamental misunderstandings with regards to how the current models function when I see people screeching about theft due to model training on their data etc. Publishers now can throw a fit, but I guarantee you they're also working behind the scenes (and some who are doing it out front) to incorporate AI tools into their content production due to the potential. Authors will have to evolve or die just like anyone else.

[@carultch]

Agreed. I've played with Quillbot on my own writing, and found that it undermined my message the way it paraphrased. Because words are never perfect synonyms, and there's usually a slightly different meaning, or slightly different tone that one provides over another. I find it ironic how they provide both the AI detector, and the paraphraser to get around the AI detector, completing the cycle of nonsense for people who want to undermine the point of the written word.

[@scarletsletter4466]

This is a tough topic because there’s a difference between generative AI in terms of “creating” art & writing for you (which prevents your work from being copyrighted) versus grammatical tools which use predictive technology, including those incorporated into editors like Microsoft Word.

[@scarletsletter4466]

😂 and yes, she says this about 16 min into the video

[@staceycoates1418]

I feel that I am in align with you in how I feel about AI. I think that there are types of AI, more or less ones that make a tool better at what the tool does, that are okay to use. For example, most spell check programs don't change the word, they SUGGEST different spellings. I don't mind tools that help me find typos and simple, silly errors; ones I should catch but might not. I think that dictation can be a great tool. I find it doesn't help me much because the program I use, Google Docs, I have to edit right after I speak because of all the errors and I can type about the same. I would only use it again for brainstorming and bulk drafting. I don't think dictation is the problem, it is a tool. And it is probably the one tool that ableism would fall into if it is not available for general use. I would even be fine is people use some generative AI for reference points. So if a writer has AI create a picture or a map for them to look at while they are writing that is okay. That picture is like if a person cuts out pictures out of a magazine, or uses a playlist of music. It is for inspiration and is for no other use, but also may not be a type of art the writer can do. Where I have an issue, and I think most people have the issue, is when AI is doing the bulk of the work. What also scares me about that Sparks site is that people may not immediately think it is AI generated work. Because the snapshot you showed I would have thought that it was sorted into tropes by AI. Having AI do mass sorting sounds like a fine use of the tool. But that is not the only thing AI would be doing in that site. And that is the scary part.

[@hannabio2770]

Toxic??? What are you talking about! You are really nuanced, polite and demonstrate critical thinking! 👏👏 Personally, I find this video amazing, interesting to listen to and just plain cool! Your words make me think about this topic and I appreciate you raising some important questions and sharing your opinion! I really like it! I agree with your words! I am interested to hear more of your thoughts! ❤ As for Nanowrimo's post - I got the feeling they wanted to save themselves time and not have to worry about the extra responsibility (how to regulate AI). That's why they hiding behind wall of words about "privelige" and "discrimination". 🙄 They definitely being lazy and cowardly in some way. The way they choose to articulate their opinion about using AI left me angry and disappointed, if to be honest. Well, them aside. Let me just say once again that I think that your video is great! Thank you so much for making it and posting it! ❤️ Send you good vibes and good wishes!

[@Artfully_J]

Beta readers are NOT readily available for everyone. In my reality people are too damn busy to slow down and read someone’s draft. Nor do I want to pay someone to do it. In my experience, people aren’t lining up to read what may, or may not be a shitty pursuit. Nor would I 😆 My stance on AI: you do you….and everyone else…do themselves. I don’t want others worrying about my biz, because I damn sure am not worrying about other’s opinions. I’m only commenting because I fail to understand what the issue is with AI when everyone uses it every time they use their smartphones and have been using it everyday for years. If you want to write your own stories…do it. If others choose to use AI that’s their business, no skin off your back.

[@thescarlettdiaries]

i’m afraid you ate with this

[@justmeyo4589]

Between this and last years drama nanowrimo is really disappointing me. As someone whos been very actively involved, even being an area coordinator person a few years ago, for 14 years. I cannot support the org anymore

[@zhadebarnet3773]

Great video. I really like your analysis of this.

[@jojobookish9529]

Their ETA note does not make it better. The issue with Gen AI is not down to a handful of "bad actors", it's inherent to the technology itself.

[@K0MRDRadioPrepper]

So what, exactly, is wrong with "Indie Publishing"?

[@alyssa.and.the.books.]

Nothing! That's why I found it strange for NaNoWriMo to imply that it's "the easy way out" in comparison to trad pub. Both are different paths with different challenges

[@shyzunk]

If I can wave a magic wand and get the same quality in ten seconds for free, there is no way for purist publishers to keep such magic away. They will be crushed by opposition. They can be purist precisely as long as human processes produce better outcomes. For now it seems to be mostly on the level on trendy copycat books. But the moment it writes a new believable Steven King book, the debate is on. I absolutely do not care if an amazing book was algo generated. And the years of work become absolutely unsustainable if the outcome is the same as instant magic. The problem would be if the quality is just enough for people to finish reading such books, but not anywhere near top human quality. Then the waves of AI trash provide a sorting challenge. As a book platform, you would now need a way to distinguish a human purist book for people who look for it. Otherwise any new author will be buried under mountains of trash. Personally I do not use AI for editing, but I did get surprisingly good plot recommendations when I ran into issues... If soon I will be able to drop a whole manuscript into a bot and say "sum up character arcs and provide improvement suggestions to make them more emotionally impactful", and if the result is helpful, there is no way I am not going to be doing that. And then you have to just take my word for the fact that the book was written by me. Because was it actually? To what degree?

[@shyzunk]

Maybe we will soon have pre-reading AI that can take your past comments on books and pre-read a book and predict if you are going to enjoy it. This might alleviate somewhat the sorting and marketing problem.

[@shyzunk]

This is because if AI can write two books a day, human reviews also can't keep up and you need algo reviews to know what is worth spending time on.

[@bangaloreshydrohome5863]

You use Grammarly or MS Word or Google Doc? Then you are already using AI , they correct your spelling and Grammar...I guess people need to understand that using tools is to better their skills, not substitutes.

[@RDCoziness]

NaNoWriMo sucks

[@InkObscuria]

I don’t think anyone is owed a life free from their own self created fear of hypothetical outcomes. Overcoming fear often times is the greatest treasure we discover. Human existence always has and always will change. The only way AI will replace human writing is if it is better. If it evolves to be better, we might be wise to evolve with it. I have been using AI since it was rolled out and have found it to be not only fascinating but helpful across a varied range of tasks and I will continue to do so. I have always been creative and AI has only enhanced, not replaced anything. Just my two cents from someone who uses AI daily.

[@marlinthecreative118]

If there is there more than one way to use your creativity why can’t some people use generative AI in their process? You are saying the only way to create is your thinking (sans generative AI). You are actually supporting their arguments by your arguments.

[@alyssa.and.the.books.]

Hey, thanks for your comment! I feel like the difference is in the fact that generative ai uses stolen art and writing from actual humans, so using ai isn't a genuine form of creativity, it's just regurgitation of other people's.

[@marlinthecreative118]

@@alyssa.and.the.books. That was not the argument you were making you were saying that everyone should have their own path to creativity, but not generative Ai.

[@gamevies9254]

​@@marlinthecreative118 look if you wanna use ai so bad no one is stopping you but some people are never gonna respect it as real writing and that's the truth.

[@faultypremise]

Generative AI was trained using stolen and scraped writing. So if you wanna use it, no one can stop you. But you can't call yourself an author. it's not your words, your work.

[@marlinthecreative118]

@@gamevies9254 I am a queer (born that way), autistic (born that way), and atheist (learned that). I am used to people judging me without knowledge and understanding. If you don't choose to respect people different than you or who have made different choices, that is on you, not on me. BTW: I don't use generative AI to create my book's test. I find it interferes with my creative process, but I don't judge those who find it helpful for their process. I've learned that everyone is different and we get to our art and creativity in different ways. Best of luck in your writing endeavors.