[Introduction: Erin Underwood originally left this as a comment and has given permission to republish it as a post.]

By Erin Underwood: I’m not going to get into the specifics regarding the use of AI by this Worldcon’s program committee. So, please note that this post has nothing to do with that…. However, I do recognize the appeal of using a tool like ChatGPT to help reduce a substantial, unpaid workload that is getting harder and harder to manage every year.

Instead, I would like to mention that one of the biggest issues that any convention program team faces (whether local, regional, or international) is figuring out who all these people are who are applying to be on the program. This is even more difficult since so many people complain about filling out longer, more detailed surveys. After years of running program teams or being a part of program teams, I can safely say that the information provided by potential program participants is often insufficient to make them stand out from all the other people who are also asking to be on the program.

Most of the time, these committees and teams rely heavily on long-time volunteers who are familiar with hundreds, if not thousands, of creatives across disciplines and over multiple generations. As longer-term volunteers disappear, their wealth of knowledge also disappears. This leaves new volunteers who are largely only familiar with the people they have read, seen, or are familiar with in their more limited capacity as a newer volunteer. We NEED new volunteers, and they are often doing the very best they can with the experience and information they have available to them.

Some common panelist questions that I have heard from volunteers include:
-Who is David Gerrold? What does he write? I don’t see any new books?
-Fonda Lee is a fantasy writer. Why would you put her on a YA or economics panel?
-What kind of art does Bob Eggleton do? Why is he on a TV show panel?

These are just a few questions that long-timers know the answers to without even seeing a survey response, but new volunteers are desperately needed, even if they don’t have the same depth of knowledge. More to the point, new volunteers are needed who are willing to do lots (and I mean LOTS and LOTS) of work for free, and those people have to actually follow through on the amount of work that is required. When I decide to run a convention program, I put in many hundreds of unpaid volunteer hours that fill up all my free time outside of my job between the months of August-February during the year – or thousands of hours if I also choose to also volunteer to help with a Worldcon. That is often a hard combination to find, and it’s a lot to ask of a person.

I can’t tell you how many times I have also seen program surveys come back from famous authors who assume that everyone knows who they are, and they only put in a bio that is pithy and funny… but doesn’t really say anything about their expertise, work, and interests. Their surveys are often detailed about when they are and aren’t available, and the use of tags and topics are usually very high level like: science fiction, fantasy, horror, diversity, writing, etc., which isn’t terribly useful when you are looking for panelists who can talk about “post-battle recovery from a medical or mental perspective within a non-industrial fantasy world.”

Additionally, the number of new, emerging, and midlist writers who are not well-known and who have 1-10 short stories and 1-3 novels is absolutely overwhelming from a program team perspective. We want to include everyone, and that is not possible. So, we have to rely on the surveys …. and when you are just looking at the answers and bios within a survey, easily 80% of survey responses look identical. Plus, the surveys are often sparsely filled out because people don’t understand the kinds of information that a program team really needs to see to understand that Author A would be amazing on a quantum physics panel because she actually works as a researcher in that field, but her survey only talks about her work as a fantasy novelist… or that Artist B would be a great panelist for that topic on how to restore engines in a post-apocalyptic world because he enjoys salvaging old cars and restoring them in his free time, but you’d only know that if you checked out his Facebook page. These are just two examples. I could come up with any number of similar examples.

But the core of the issue here is that when I work on a program, I spend easily half of my time googling authors who didn’t fill out their survey with enough information or writing to them to ask follow-up questions. That may sound like a normal and natural thing to do, but when you are dealing with 350+ people (or 1,300+ people), that can lead to hundreds of extra hours of unpaid volunteer work when you only have about 10-15 hours of time to give to your volunteer work per week. I loved doing it. When I run programming, I start the programming process in August (or earlier) just so I can get the program out by mid-January, and over the decades that I have been doing this, I have written hundreds of thousands of words in notes regarding what I know about people, and for privacy reasons, you really can’t keep these kinds of notes laying round. Yes, there are databases that could be used but you need to get permission to capture certain data and if you ever change databases, you lose all that past data …. and all this energy and effort over the years has burnt me out. People ask why I stepped back from running program. It’s because I simply can’t give that much time to a convention at the expense of my own creative work and mental well-being any longer.

Part of the problem is that we are dealing with real people, with real feelings, with hopes of achieving their dreams, with desires for success, and with love for the community they are a part of … and a convention’s program is the heart of the community because it brings all of these people together with fans, friends, and colleagues to talk about the things they love. Nobody wants to leave anyone out. Nobody wants to feel left out. And nobody wants to cause someone else harm … and it’s so easy to do these things unintentionally, despite our best intentions.

I, for one, would love to use AI as a tool to help cut down on some of that research time so that I could perform much more targeted research that is much more effective. I want to do a good job. I know every other program volunteer wants to do a good job. I also know that getting people to volunteer to work on program is getting harder and harder to do because they are terrified of landing themselves in the center of an internet firestorm, and the people who have the most experience at navigating this space without catching themselves on fire are becoming fewer and fewer … those who are left are burning themselves out at the expense of their own health, mental well-being, and creative success.

I understand the frustration and anger toward LLMs, but I think that we need to grant a little grace and understanding … and even kindness … to the people who are donating their time and putting their hearts, blood, sweat, and tears into trying to create these events that bring our community together.

Sometimes it is enough to say “this action is unacceptable” without burning everything to the ground, including the people … people who are just like the people who are raging in their angry protests, resigning their posts, turning down their nominations, and walking away from the convention. Again, saying “no” is enough. Thoughtful, if not stern, reprimands work far better than internet firestorms.

On a personal note, I don’t think I will ever feel comfortable volunteering or possibly even attending another SF/F convention again. I’m not even sure if this is the kind of community I want to be a part of any longer when every year, almost without fail, I see my friends and colleagues publicly shredding each other to pieces as they tear down different conventions, traditions, and communities.

I don’t think we can solve this problem as long as Worldcon remains run by independent organizations each year. Without a systemic organizational structure that has continuous annual oversight from year to year as well as some number of paid employees to maintain the structural, procedural, and data integrity, we are doomed to repeat the annual Ground Hog Day activities of the SF/F community dining upon ourselves at the annual Worldcon banquet.

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Erin Underwood is a writer, editor, and content producer based in the greater Boston area. She has edited several anthologies, including Futuredaze, Geek Theater, and The Grimm Future, and her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various publications. Erin is also an active volunteer in the science fiction community. She holds an MFA and enjoys exploring the intersections of storytelling, technology, and fandom. Visit her at www.youtube.com/@ErinUnderwood