AI Disclosure Policy

I use artificial intelligence as a tool.

I do not use it as a substitute for judgment, responsibility, authorship, lived experience, or moral accountability.

This website contains essays, technical writing, reflections, stories, and other materials written under my name. When I publish something here, I am responsible for it. That remains true whether I wrote every word by hand, used an editor, consulted documentation, asked another person for feedback, or used an AI tool somewhere in the process.

AI can be useful. It can help find awkward phrasing, identify inconsistencies, summarize complex material, pressure-test an argument, suggest alternative structures, generate examples, or help me think through a technical problem. Those uses can be valuable.

They are also limited.

AI does not have lived experience. It does not possess conscience, wisdom, remorse, love, humility, or accountability. It can produce fluent language, useful suggestions, and plausible explanations. That fluency should not be confused with understanding.

My General Practice

When I use AI in connection with this site, I may use it for tasks such as:

• Checking grammar, spelling, punctuation, and consistency
• Suggesting clearer wording
• Helping identify gaps, weak assumptions, or confusing structure
• Summarizing source material that I then review myself
• Brainstorming possible angles, titles, outlines, or examples
• Helping research public information, subject to verification
• Drafting or revising code, comments, scripts, configuration, or documentation
• Comparing options or pressure-testing technical decisions

I do not consider these uses to make AI the author of the work.

The final judgment is mine.

Authorship

Unless otherwise stated, the ideas, conclusions, values, arguments, stories, and published positions on this site are my own.

I may use AI to help me say what I mean more clearly. I do not intentionally use AI to decide what I believe, replace my own reasoning, manufacture personal experience, or present machine-generated thought as though it were my own original judgment.

That distinction matters to me.

• If AI helped me refine an idea, I still remain responsible for deciding whether the idea is true, fair, useful, and worth publishing.
• If AI suggested language, I remain responsible for whether that language accurately reflects what I mean.
• If AI helped produce code, documentation, or analysis, I remain responsible for reviewing, testing, correcting, and accepting the result.

Disclosure

I will disclose AI involvement when I believe that involvement is material to the reader's understanding of the work.

That may include cases where:

• A substantial portion of the text was generated by AI
• AI-generated material is being discussed as part of the subject of the piece
• AI meaningfully shaped the structure, argument, examples, or presentation
• AI-generated code, images, or other artifacts are included
• The reader could reasonably misunderstand the degree of human authorship without disclosure

Routine assistance does not always receive a separate disclosure. For example, I may not add a special note every time I use a spelling checker, grammar tool, search engine, thesaurus, documentation assistant, or LLM to help identify an awkward sentence or pressure-test a paragraph.

The standard I use is materiality: would knowing about the AI involvement reasonably change how a reader understands the origin, authority, or meaning of the work?

If yes, I should say so.

Verification

AI-generated output can be wrong. It can also be plausible in ways that are harder to detect than obvious error. It may smooth over uncertainty, invent details, misunderstand context, or gradually drift away from the original intent of a piece of writing, design decision, or technical implementation.

For that reason, I do not treat AI output as authoritative merely because it sounds polished.

When factual, technical, legal, medical, financial, historical, or otherwise consequential claims are involved, AI-generated material must be checked against reliable sources, direct evidence, documentation, testing, or personal knowledge as appropriate.

For technical work, I treat AI assistance as reviewable work product. Code, configuration, comments, and documentation must still be inspected by a human. Explanations must match reality. Comments must preserve intent rather than invent rationale after the fact. If I don't know something, I do not post content asserting that I do, nor do I use AI to make it seem like I do.

Sources and Attribution

AI does not erase the need to credit human work.

When I rely on books, articles, documentation, code, research papers, public posts, conversations, or other identifiable sources, I cite or acknowledge them as appropriate. This is especially important because AI systems are trained on patterns found in human-created material. Even when a model produces new phrasing, the ethical responsibility to respect human authorship remains.

I will not knowingly present someone else's work as my own.

I will not knowingly present AI-generated work as my own original human judgment when that would mislead the reader.

Images, Media, and Generated Assets

If I publish AI-generated images, audio, video, diagrams, or other media, I will disclose that when the generated nature of the asset is relevant or could reasonably be misunderstood.

I do not use AI-generated media to deceive readers about real events, real people, or personal experience.

Personal Writing

Some writing on this site may include personal stories, grief, leadership failures, work, loss, creativity, and human growth.

Those subjects require particular care.

AI may help me edit or reflect, but it cannot supply the lived substance of those experiences. I will not use AI to manufacture personal history, emotional authority, or human struggle I have not lived.

Corrections

If I discover that AI-assisted material on this site contains a meaningful error, misleading statement, missing attribution, or insufficient disclosure, I will correct it when practical.

The Principle

My standard is simple:

AI may assist the work, but it may not replace the responsibility of the person publishing it.

When my name appears on a piece of writing, I am accountable for what it says.