Chair Messages

The Seattle Worldcon 2025 extends our deepest apologies for multiple failure points which occurred during this year’s Hugo Awards ceremony.

First of all, my apologies for missing my deadline of updating you in three weeks as indicated in my May 13 statement. Much of our update can be summed up as moving forward with progress but not as quickly as we had hoped.

Last week, I promised an update about the progress Seattle Worldcon 2025 has made regarding our next steps related to remedying our mistakes related to the use of ChatGPT in panelist vetting. Much of this update can be summed up as “we’re waiting to hear back from the people we have invited to help.”

We have received questions regarding Seattle’s use of AI tools in our vetting process for program participants. In the interest of transparency, we will explain the process of how we are using a Large Language Model (LLM).