I don’t think anyone is believing AI generated text can in any way compare itself to the output of a skilled writer. Where I have issue is if I’m trying to describe the inter-workings of a quantum computer for my story, I can’t do it from any personal knowledge. So I can either do a google search and find a wikipedia entry and cut/paste most of it or I can ask an LLM for a description and use that.
One is acceptable and the other gets me banned from competitions. And I don’t feel there is much difference in either.
Both the SpringThing and Parser comp now have rules or wording prohibiting or greatly discouraging any use of sort of AI. The 2025 IFComp had 15 of 85 or 18% included some use of AI. Way up from previous years. So yes, it would be nice to have more IF avenues that embrace new technology.
To play devil’s advocate here, cutting and pasting from Wikipedia is also not great and would potentially get you banned if you didn’t cite it. And even if you did, unless someone is explicitly looking stuff up on Wikipedia in- universe you’re likely better off rephrasing it in your own words, which you could also do for LLM text and have that be allowed in all the competitions you mentioned. If you can’t rephrase it in your own words because it’s still too technically complicated, how do you know the explanation will work for your audience?
And how do you know the LLM hasn’t completely botched the description in a way that people familiar with the thing at issue will find incredibly jarring? In addition to the points about how maybe events about writing should involve writing, the practical reasons for caution here seem pretty compelling!
And as far as copying from another (non-LLM) source—the difference is that you can cite it so the original author gets credit and people can follow the reference back if they want to learn more. My IFComp entry includes some figures copied from various books, since my artistic skills are not really up to the task of depicting how ancient Hittite ladders worked—but always with an explanation of where they’re taken from.
I almost fell into my habit of responding before seeing what everyone else has written, and @Encorm phrased my thoughts better than I could’ve.
The only thing I would add on is if the content is not too technical for your audience and you still feel the need to include it in your work for whatever valid reason, you should not miss the opportunity to crash-course a topic well enough to write it in your own words.
I’ve had to do this for a frankly-bonkers number of topics that are wayyyyyyy outside of my usual expertise, and it’s been a thrilling experience every single time. It’s a lot of work, but (in my opinion) it’s wholeheartedly worth it to see more facets of the world, even if it’s from a distance.
I just did this with the Horseshoe Curve and how it uses the gradual incline of the curve to defeat the Allegheny Escarpment and how this led to a critical East/West link that made connections between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh take hours instead of days. It and it’s related Juniata Railyards were so important, that it was later revealed that the city (Altoona) of barely 40,000 people was a primary Soviet nuclear strike target, as it would both sever East/West rail shipments as well as destroy the single largest locomotive repair yard in the Western Hemisphere, bottlenecking the ability to keep rail travel going throughout the US. As far as I can tell from historical local newspapers from the time of the revelation as well as talking to locals who lived here at the time, the collective community reaction to such a revelation was pretty much a communal “meh."
I can offer some references, or I guess answer direct questions, in a way that’s far less error-prone than either a google search or (having just checked) asking an AI search. If you’re actually looking for information and not just using it as an example.