In times like this, it's good to know that what protestors are doing on the ground is having an effect on ICE. In particular:
The Twin Cities Model: Don’t Copy It, Learn from It
What sets apart the Twin Cities rapid response network and its surrounding ecosystem is not strict adherence to a particular structure. It is a clear analysis of their conditions, a willingness to adapt, and the courage to fight back as the violence increases.
I think this article is also useful - setting off car alarms, whistling, filming, and yelling at ICE does have an effect, especially when protesters outnumber ICE. In particular:
In Minneapolis, we’re already seeing the success of ICE Watch. There are countless videos from ICE Watch observers that show agents leaving without detaining anyone after they encounter resistance. There are currently about 3,000 ICE agents in Minnesota, but the Department of Homeland Security claims they have only arrested 2,400 people — less than one person per agent.
I'm not going to fault you for that - but do you think you should receive an award for the work you didn't do? Even if you only use the car on the "easy" parts of the race that nobody cares about?
In the case of this particular game, perhaps the bulk of the creative work was done by humans. But if the GOTY committee isn't confident with drawing a line between what work is OK to offload onto an AI and what work isn't, then I think it's fair for then to say this year that any generative AI use is a disqualifier.
You and I can say with ease that an implementation of a basic swap function (c=a, a=b, b=c) doesn't require any creative work and has been done to death, so there's no shame in copypasteing something from stackoverflow or chatgpt into your own code to save time.
But it's harder to gauge that for more complex things. Especially with art - where would you draw the line? Reference material? Concept art? Background textures or 3d models of basic props (random objects in the scene like chairs, trees, etc)?
I don't think there's a clear answer for that. You might have an answer you think is correct, and I might have one as well, but I think it will be difficult and time consuming to achieve consensus in the game development community.
So, the most efficient answer for now is to have any generative AI be a disqualifier.