Nanowrimo versus AI

 Next month is National Novel Writing Month, the annual challenge for writers of all genres and levels to attempt getting 50,000 words under their belts in the month of November. It's been going on since 1999, and I've participated a few times with varying results. Going to try again this year, but there's one thing that's a little different this year . . . AI.

This is the first year that we're all painfully aware that a computer algorithm is out there that can write a 50,000 or more word novel in a much, much, MUCH shorter period of time. At this point, it's not good enough at it to write a great novel, or probably even a good novel, but you know there are already doofuses out there with no scruples or talent having AI write them novels and trying to sell them. Trying a self-published book by an unknown has become much more risky.

So a computer program can write a book . . . and one day, we can imagine, it might be able to write a book as well as a lot of us. Why should we bother writing novels at that point?

Well, we already have robots that can run a marathon faster and further than a human. Why do marathoners still run? 

Because there have always been better runners, even when it was just us humans. Most runners don't run to win. Runners run for the experience, for how it improves their bodies, and a hundred other reasons.

It's the same with writing.

National novel writing month isn't about having a potential New York Times bestseller come December. It isn't really even about testing yourself to see if you can do it. It's about just writing and writing and writing and learning what all that experience will teach you. It might teach you that you can write a novel. It might teach you how to push past writer's block as the artificial deadline makes you learn to first-draft without self-criticism. It might show you parts of your mind that were just waiting to get out if only the other parts would quiet down and let them out. 

Ever watch a kung fu movie where the troubled main character has to go into a montage of repeating and repeating and learning and getting more skilled? Nanowrimo November is that montage for a writer.

Sure, an AI can write a novel or draw a picture for your lazy ass. But it sure isn't going to make you a better human. Remember that movie WALL-E and those lazy lumps that humans had become as the robots did all their work for them? Yeah, that, but for creativity.

As I've mentioned over at the John H. Watson Society website, this year I'm calling my own personal marathon of words "Watsowrimo" and inviting fellow Sherlockians to join in. We've still got over a week until November, so give it a little thought. You will definitely wind up a better person than those AI-using lumps pretending to be creative.