when is the last time you worked programming on a worldcon or con of similar scale, James? For me, the answer is never, so I am taking the word of folks who have as accurate.
For me the answer is also never. But I have multiple friends who have (including last year at Glasgow), and their consistent response is, "Yeah, it's a lot of work, but we managed without ChatGPT, and we'd never use it."
Each worldcon is a separate entity with less shared DNA than you think so while one con might have a lot of volunteers for things another a year later might not. It’s part of the problem.
That said, I should emphasize that given the limitations of Bluesky, I was principally focused on the LLM/AI aspect of your comment. I have no problem at all with paying people to do the work, and in fact, would be heartily in favor of upping all/some of the fees to attend in order to finance them.
So, apologies for being overly flip and for any offense I may have caused to the good folks who've put in the voluntary time to make Worldcons and other cons happen. My mistake – I deeply appreciate you and should've been more mindful/considerate of the time and effort you put in. Again, sorry.
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The folks who run the Hugos seem to agree.
https://gizmodo.com/worldcon-2025-chatgpt-controversy-hugos-2000598351