First and foremost, as chair of the Seattle Worldcon, I sincerely apologize for the use of ChatGPT in our program vetting process. Additionally, I regret releasing a statement that did not address the concerns of our community. My initial statement on the use of AI tools in program vetting was incomplete, flawed, and missed the most crucial points. I acknowledge my mistake and am truly sorry for the harm it caused.
There is much more that needs to be done to address this harm, but it will take some time to develop a comprehensive response and fuller apology over the weekend. We will release a response by Tuesday of next week that provides a transparent explanation of the process that was used, answers more of the questions and concerns we have received, and openly outlines our next steps.
Thanks,
Kathy Bond
I hope you’ll address how, as GenAI is trained on racist and misogynistic datasets, bias is likely to appear in selections, even those only comprised of names. What are you and your org doing to avoid that? (This is only about the selection, setting aside the theft, water useage, and environmental damage caused by GenAI.)
Step 1. RESIGN.
Step 2. Anyone who thought this was a good idea, ALSO RESIGN.
Step 3. Now Worldcon can continue.
Relax, Francis.
So everybody who received a panelist rejection letter will now receive an acceptance letter?
Thank you for taking these concerns to heart. I am withholding judgement until I have a better understanding of how and why the AI system was used.
Very classy. I don’t think you needed to apologize. No need to wallow in the past. With human review- your process was just fine. Thank you for caring about what folks think, even when they are wrong and you are right.
The only response of value you could provide involves the promise to never use AI tools in this process again, followed by a step by step plan for how you will be rolling back the damage already done by AI, including a full detail of what information was fed into this tool.
As ChatGPT uses all input to “train” its own tools, the least your community deserves is to learn what information and property of theirs has been freely given to a plagiarism machine.
If you need to start the vetting process from scratch, let me know. I volunteer to help if you need me.
Nice to see someone trying to be helpful instead of throwing stones.
Same here, I doubt I can help but happy to if I can. Hope the staff is getting support through this. The internet can be awful.