Dragon Con Responds to our Inquiry
And our reply!
The Co-Chair of Dragon Con, Dave Cody, has responded to our inquiry regarding Cedar Sanderson’s removal from the ballot for the Dragon Awards. This email has been sent to us and others inquiring about her removal. Our response is below.
After posting the nominee list for the 2024 Dragon Awards on the Dragon Awards website, we were alerted to the fact that Cedar Sanderson's entry in the Best Illustrative Cover category had been created in part using Artificial Intelligence tools. As a consequence, we removed her cover for The Goblin Market from consideration because we don't allow AI in our Art Show, Comic and Pop Artist Alley, Vendor Halls or the Awards.
Though Sanderson's nomination was included on the website for a short time, none of the ballots emailed to prospective voters included it.
Our intent with Dragon Awards is to provide a great list of books to read across eight categories, television shows and movies to watch, comic books to read and both tabletop and video games to play. And, in a category we added last year, admire the best artist work on book covers.
We recognize the AI is a new tool with enormous potential and society will eventually come to a consensus about how it should be used and how much content can be can be created using AI while still crediting a human for the work, at which time, we will consider changing our policy. Until then, however, we want the Dragon Awards to offer a fans an opportunity to recognize the humans who create the works that fans love best.We apologize for the disruption this has caused and it was completely our fault for not catching that The Goblin Market cover was created with AI tools. We will be implementing process changes so that this does not happen again in the future.
Sincerely,
Dave Cody
Co-chair Dragon Con
Our response:
David—
Thank you for your response.
While we've never hidden the fact that Cedar uses AI tools, and we have no issue with you choosing the standards for your award, we are a bit surprised that you removed her from the nomination based on a notification from someone without bothering to conduct due diligence by contacting either her or her publisher for clarification.
We note, as have many other people, that your stated rules for entry on the Dragon Awards site do not mention, in any way, shape, or form, that the artist's use of AI tools in the work is not allowed for that nomination. Indeed, this is the only requirement listed:
"What is the best illustrative book cover for a qualifying work of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Alternate History, or Horror Novel first released in print or electronic format during the last half of a year, July 1st and later, and the first half of a year, January 1st to June 30th."
Unless we are missing something — and please correct us if we are — nowhere on the Dragon Awards page does it say "no use of AI tools."
This is clearly causing a lot of confusion with the nominations and the voting. If there was to be no AI tool use allowed, that should have been stated on the Awards page from the beginning of the nomination process. Sudden removal of a finalist, with no explanation and no direct contact, for a standard not listed as a disqualifying factor from the beginning of the nomination period, reduces the trust in the process substantially.
It would be remiss of us if we did not point out that many people have noted several other nominations in this category appear to have used AI processes. We will trust that after being notified about Cedar's use of AI, you chose to verify with all the finalists that they didn't use any AI tools in the production of their work, as it now will become a point of interest for those nominations disenfranchised by this lack of clarity.
Going forward, we would suggest that after this year's confusion, that your organization take the necessary steps to make the requirements for a valid nomination in this category clear and precise, and that these clear and concise standards be applied consistently. What specific AI tools and processes are forbidden? Photoshop, for example, has built-in AI (Firefly). Does it disqualify an artist if they use it?
Again, we thank you for your response.
Raconteur Press
An excellent response on your part and a pathetic one on theirs. They dropped the ball big time. From not having clear "rules" from the start to not notifying RP or Cedar about the issue to potentially not doing due diligence regarding the other covers, the whole think smacks of a knee-jerk reaction on their part to someone's complaint. As Robert mentioned in his comment, the stance on AI is silly at best. Every author who using a word processing program uses AI to an extent. From word prediction to spelling and grammar checks, word processors are rife with AI. Photo manipulation/creation programs are as well. The fact the awards don't even ask about AI early in the process shows they weren't that concerned. So what happened? That's the question they need to answer.
Cedar has done a couple of amazing covers for the Tull anthologies my wife and I are working on. These are DISTINCTIVELY Cedar covers, too. I had someone at LibertyCon stop, pick up a copy of "Minstrels in the Galaxy", and state, "This is a Cedar cover. How do you know her?"
If someone can identify her individual style from her covers, I'd argue that there is no way they can be considered purely AI-generated.