It's not meant to be clever. They have a rule that says, in its entirety, "Games developed using generative AI are strictly ineligible for nomination."
Do they count procedural level generation as generative AI? Am I crazy that this doesn't seem clear to me?
No, we're at the phase with AI where people have extremely strong feelings, it's not well understood, and the definitions are not clear. I am with you in that rules like this seem dogmatic and hard to understand the implications of.