Another year, yet another controversy adjacent to Hugo prices? This is perhaps what fans of science fiction media and related media are thinking, with a new one today that a trio of leaders of Seattle 2025 WorldCon, the next iteration of the Convention where the Hugos are presented each year, have resigned. This year, at least, the prices themselves – voted by the members of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) – are not directly involved in the dust.
In an article on Bluesky co-signed by the administrator of Hugo, Nicholas Whyte, the assistant administrator of Hugo, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and the head of the Science Fiction World Cassidy, the trio announced that they would resign from their roles before the Seattle event, which takes place in August. “We want to reaffirm that no LLMS or generative AI has been used in the Hugo Awards process at any stage,” said the declaration in part, which could turn the head of anyone who has) interested in the Hugos, but b) not on the last controversy.
However, many people in the community are well aware of what’s going on. A quick trip to the blog file 770 will inform you, as is a visit to the Seattle WorldCon 2025 website, which, on April 30, shared an article clarifying exactly the role that AI played in the next event.
“We have received questions concerning the use of SEATTLE of AI tools in our process of verification of participants in the program,” wrote Kathy Bond to the president of Seattle WorldCon 2025. “In an interest in transparency, we will explain the process of the way we use a broad language model (LLM). We understand that members of our community have very reasonable concerns and strong opinions on the use of LLMS. was to rationalize the online research process used for the verification of the program participants, and rather than being accepted without criticism, the results were carefully analyzed by several members of our team for accuracy. »»
Bond’s message explains that “the use of this process has been registered literally hundreds of hours of time of volunteer personnel, and we believe that this led to a more precise verification after measuring the verification of alleged negative results. We also did not use LLM in any other aspect of our program or our convention. ”
This latest line is what Whyte’s today’s resignation post, MacCallum-Stewart and Cassidy also underlined: that the Hugos themselves were not fired in this process, which was intended to help Seattle WorldCon 2025 to compile the panels he offers more effectively to the participants in Convention.
Bond later published an additional message on May 2, reiterating its apologies on the use of Chatgpt within the framework of the Program of the Convention Program. “In addition, I regret having published a statement that did not respond to the concerns of our community,” she shared. “My initial declaration on the use of AI tools in the verification of the program was incomplete, imperfect and missed the most crucial points. I recognize my error and I am very sorry for the evil that this caused.”
However, as the 770 file pointed out, the damage has apparently already been done: the use of chatgpt in any title whatsoever in relation to WorldCon has created a fury on social networks. He also inspired at least one Hugo candidate to withdraw their book from the line: Yoon ha Lee, from which Moon storm was appointed finalist of the Lodestar Award, who honors Ya will be released. In an article on May 1 on Bluesky, the author linked to the blog post of April 30 WorldCon noted above, and noted that he withdrew the title of consideration.
Then, in an article shared today, responding to the last article in file 770 announcing the resignations, the author wrote: “All respect and I am grateful to them for their work, sorry [things] came to this pass.
Seattle WorldCon 2025 takes place from August 13 to 17; The Hugo Awards will be awarded on August 16.
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