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NaNoWriMo gets AI sponsor, says not writing your novel with AI is ‘classist and ableist’
(pivot-to-ai.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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Perhaps this will change in the future, but I think people don't realize the amount of effort needed to make AI write anything close to what you actually want and the inability to write a coherent plot for anything close to a novel sized output. Right now it's like using early 2000s Photoshop, yeah it can do some cool things, but don't trick yourself that you're not doing most of the actual work yourself still.
"Write X like author Y" gets you a word salad of phrases and common words from the author in question without actually getting the "feel."
Yeah seriously, the way AI is presented by the companies vs. what it actually can do is a pretty stark difference.
I write as a hobby and I've been trying out some AI writing aids just for the hell of it. There are a couple I quite like and which mimic my writing style almost creepily well, but they can't generate more than a sentence or two without falling into total gibberish. And even then, the coherent output they do provide still requires heavy editing to make it fit.
I'm quite enjoying the two, though. Its nice, when you've been stuck on one sentence or description for ten minutes, to have a button you can click that gives you something. I rarely wind up using the AI suggestion, but I've found it really helps to get some random outside stimulus. But that's kinda all it can do. The promises that it can make your work sound like it was written by Hemmingway or Prachett are at best wishful thinking, and it just can't write a novel for you yet, despite what these companies claim.
Idk, this is rambling on a bit so I'll cut it short: I think my point is that current AI is just another tool, and one that can be quite nice in certain circumstances once you've learned how to use it. And that the real root problem here is NaNoWriMo getting monetized by the silicon valley bastards association.