I have an idea where to start: the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for Science Fiction should create an AI-assisted category.
I predict that if you suggest this in SF fannish circles it will go down like a Space Shuttle with failed O-rings. All the SF magazines have strict policies against the use of AI. For example, Analog says:
Statement on the Use of “AI” writing tools such as ChatGPT
We will not consider any submissions written, developed, or assisted by these tools. Attempting to submit these works may result in being banned from submitting works in the future.
We do not use any form of AI or LLM in the production of Interzone and we don’t want to read stories that incorporate any amount of ‘writing’ generated by ‘AI’ tools.
Just did a little quick research (using Gemini!) and although photography was immediately embraced by the public, it took around 50 years for the fine arts establishment to begin accepting it for curation, awards, etc. The related anecdote here is that the Paris Salon — the world’s greatest art exhibit across the 18th and 19th Centuries — included photography in 1859, but segregated it from fine arts as part of industrial and mechanical crafts in a completely separate building. The first Guggenheim Fellowship for a photographer isn’t until 1937.
Given the 2026 rules for the Oscars, it would be somewhat ironic if the last bastion of complete rejection of AI-assistance in content creation was SF writing.
I’m not familiar with early photography, but I wonder if the 50 years was not how long it took for a stuffy establishment to admit a new upstart, but how long it took photographers to develop the medium into something worthy of the name of art.
I’m sure we’ll agree it’s a complex social process. Gemini says there are many examples of photographers that were dismissed as doing technical or even chemical experiments during the early period who are now revered as great artists. Gustave Le Gray used different negatives of sea and sky to create compositions with balanced exposure in the 1850s.
I predict that if you suggest this in SF fannish circles it will go down like a Space Shuttle with failed O-rings. All the SF magazines have strict policies against the use of AI. For example, Analog says:
Interzone says:
Just did a little quick research (using Gemini!) and although photography was immediately embraced by the public, it took around 50 years for the fine arts establishment to begin accepting it for curation, awards, etc. The related anecdote here is that the Paris Salon — the world’s greatest art exhibit across the 18th and 19th Centuries — included photography in 1859, but segregated it from fine arts as part of industrial and mechanical crafts in a completely separate building. The first Guggenheim Fellowship for a photographer isn’t until 1937.
Given the 2026 rules for the Oscars, it would be somewhat ironic if the last bastion of complete rejection of AI-assistance in content creation was SF writing.
I’m not familiar with early photography, but I wonder if the 50 years was not how long it took for a stuffy establishment to admit a new upstart, but how long it took photographers to develop the medium into something worthy of the name of art.
I’m sure we’ll agree it’s a complex social process. Gemini says there are many examples of photographers that were dismissed as doing technical or even chemical experiments during the early period who are now revered as great artists. Gustave Le Gray used different negatives of sea and sky to create compositions with balanced exposure in the 1850s.
This is a very beautiful piece of art:
https://static.the-independent.com/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/02/19/01/5927595.jpg
Agreed on Gustave Le Gray! I had not known of him before.