Wasn't it even Tron who didn't qualify for the special effects oscar because they "used computers"?
It's interesting that it's no longer "computer bad", now it's "AI bad".
As far as I know, any film can be submitted for Academy Award consideration in any category, then an executive committee determines the eligibility of each submission and chooses up to 20 films to move onto the nomination process.
I don't think this committee publishes anything about its decision-making process, so presumably Lisberger is just guessing based on his impression of industry sentiment at the time.