I was excited to be offered a place on the program at Worldcon in Seattle, but recent events about Worldcon have left me in a quandary. I will probably still attend, but I’m dismayed and discouraged by what’s happening.

I first attended Worldcon in 2023. I applied to be a participant with little expectation of getting on the program, and was very surprised when I ended up with eight appearances. I applied again in 2024 and, expecting to be selected, made all of my arrangements to travel internationally to Glasgow. When I was not selected, I decided — at significant expense — to cancel all of my arrangements. So, when I applied for this year in Seattle, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I filled out the interest form to be a participant in October. In January, I was very excited to be invited to be a participant. And, in early April, I had the opportunity to fill out the panel selection survey, to propose myself for particular roles. And then, just before May, the Worldcon Chair issued a statement, followed by an apology, and then a clarifying statement, about the use of ChatGPT, a generative AI Large Language Model (LLM) in the participant selection process, that included the actual ChatGPT prompt they used to investigate participants.

Basically, they tried to use ChatGPT to assess potential participants (who were identified by name to the system) for disqualifying attitudes, statements, and behaviors. The system collected information and provided it for review, along with an assessment of the suitability of each name.

The reaction of the speculative fiction community was swift and almost universally negative. A few people have tried to speak up for the organizers, but most expressed outrage. A number of prominent people have withdrawn as volunteers and participants. Or even pulled their works from consideration for awards.

Large Language Models are reviled in the writing community for many reasons: they have been unethically developed, frequently exhibit bias, and are known to “hallucinate” false information. Moreover, they represent an existential threat to the writing community if their corporate masters are allowed to profit from the unethical use of the source materials that were used to train them.

Others, with more expertise, have written about the shortcomings of using Generative AI in general, and ChatGPT in particular, for this purpose. Both the choice of tool and the nature of the prompt meant that the results would be potentially biased and untrustworthy.

Many people ran the prompt on their own name to see what their report looked like. Out of curiosity, I finally decided to do that too, to see what they would have found when they investigated me. The report about me was banal with no wildly incorrect information. (I could speculate at length about why, but the reasons aren’t really germane to this discussion.)

I have written about my grave concerns about the use of generative AI and that fact that I do not personally use “AI” for anything. I had previously never used ChatGPT. And I regret having given into my curiosity to use it now.

My overall reaction has been dismay. Worldcon was already going to be thinly attended due to the unsafe conditions traveling to — or even within — the United States for many people. Now, even more people are canceling their plans to attend for this unforced error.

My initial hope was that they would reject the work done by AI — the fruit of the poison tree — and redo the participant selection process — even it meant I risked being denied a spot on the program. But, unfortunately, they seem to have doubled-down on retaining the work done to date.

So, I’m left with a quandary. I don’t plan to take any immediate action. I don’t even know if I’ve been selected to appear on any panels. And I have other obligations to fulfill at Worldcon: My publisher has applied to sell books there — presumably including my forthcoming book. Furthermore, as Secretary of SFWA, I would like the opportunity to meet with and coordinate with my colleagues. But I’m left dismayed and discouraged. And deeply unsettled.