I know you are, but what am I?
Ableism and eugenics in the generative AI debate
We interrupt this book review Substack to bring you…RAGE.
However, if you were feeling invested in the next couple months of this letter being about reviews: I recently wrote the forward to the Penguin Classics reissue of In This Sign, by Joanne Greenberg. Though hearing, Greenberg was enmeshed in the deaf community and IMHO, it shows. First released in 1970, this book is leagues ahead of its time. If you want to know more, there’s an excerpt of the forward up on LitHub.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, RAGE.
Anyone who pays even vague attention to the internet’s Literary Discourse has likely seen the drama play out with respect to NaNoWriMo’s accepting of funding from, then doubling down on the use of, generative Artificial Intelligence in creative work. Many have spoken on the technical and creative pitfalls of AI more comprehensively than I can—but it if you want to read more, I recommend Lincoln and Maris(« paywalled). Oh yeah, I wrote about it a little here, too.
But, I think it bears expanding on the particularly gaslighty nature of NaNoWriMo’s justification of AI with respect to disability. To quote from their site:
“We also want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.”
Indeed, sir—questions around its use do tie to privilege, but not in the way you’d like. Here, NaNoWriMo is committing one of a classic pair of internet sins—using the word “ableism” to virtue signal without having a fucking clue what said word actually means. (The other is screaming at people that ableism doesn’t exist.) So, while we’re here:
Ableism (noun): a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against [disabled] people and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’.
Like other -isms, ableism functions both systemically and on the individual level, and intersectionally. Now that we’re on the same page, let’s break down exactly why NaNoWriMo’s statement is so foul.
First, the phrase “categorical condemnation” is doing a lot of work here, and it is, of course, in bad faith. No one taking issue with NaNoWriMo’s sponsorship is condemning all AI, nor the use of the use of assistive AI in creative work, either by genpop, (spell check!) or with respect to disabled users, (e.g. screenreaders, captions, speech-to-text, dyslexia fonts). The issue here is the use of generative AI, and specifically generative AI in a creative writing context—the context being NaNoWriMo, in which folks attempt to write a novel draft.
Second, there is an implication here that disabled people are relying on theft robots in order to write books. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but I can confirm that I am absofuckinglutely not splicing together other people’s novels to write my own. I know many talented disabled writers who can say the same. The suggestion that we need “help” from said theft robot to write fiction is both condescending and, yes, ableist!
A caveat?
Could we ever make a case for generative AI as beneficial to disabled people? I think so. One example could be something like a disabled parent using an LLM to write a business email, say, to their child’s principal or teacher about an issue going on at school.
The email is a necessary task that needs to be completed, and for some folks with certain disabilities, this task could take a lot of exertion/effort/time/spoons. AI could help get it done, make it professional-sounding, and less of a day-derailing project. BUT. The, though the person has completed the email task, they still have not written anything, just as someone asking AI to write a novel for them has not written anything; they have simply placed a request for, and received, a block of plagiarized text. In the former scenario, questions of authorship don’t matter that much. In the latter, they super do.
And really, who are we kidding?
Because writing a novel can be many things, but what it definitely is not is necessary. I mean, for me, insofar as it is bound up in my livelihood it is necessary, but I can promise no one begged me to become a novelist, and even after I did it’s still only me here asking me to sit down each morning and do the damn thing, and also there are other muchhhhh more effective ways to make money. As important as writing fiction feels to me (and man it really does, all the way down into my gut), it is not an essential task—in fact, that’s what makes it special.
Asking generative AI to write your novel for you is like asking a robot to go play a sport for you, or eat on your behalf. The sport gets played, the thing gets eaten. But why?
NaNoWriMo’s particularly gross response to all this is at least in part inherent to its wonky philosophy about what writing goals should be—more words, rather than good ones. But it also speaks to the intricate societal plaiting of ableism and classism inherent to generative AI at large.
That a machine strips working people of their ideas, then regurgitates them back out in disguise and in a manner designed specifically to line the pockets of silicon valley robber barons, is obviously classist. But besides stealing this disabled writer’s intellectual property—via which I earn money to support my family—as AI swallows up our planet’s water and overloads our power grids, disabled people everywhere are disproportionately impacted, both by immediate scarcity of resources as well as long-term through climate change.
Does it come as any surprise, then, that as the silicon valley set has been building their theft machines, they have also been behind a huge resurgence of eugenic philosophy which continues to drip down from tech and medicine into other disciplines? As they accrue more billions and more social and political influence with each LLM prompt, we creep closer to their ultimate dreamscape: a world in which I don’t exist at all.
I don’t know, NaNoWriMo…sounds kinda ableist.
BIZ Biz
Seattle! I’m pretty thrilled to be kicking off the Deaf Lit Fest Friday, October 11, 7PM PT. I’ll be doing my thing, but there are other great deaf writers presenting, too, as well as workshops, ASL drag story time, and more. Tickets, festival schedule, all here!
Speaking of, it’s Deaf Awareness Month. Be aware, we’re here. To celebrate, I unlocked my ASL Mythbusters post, featuring all your favorite ASL and Deaf Ed related FAQs.