My AI Policy (inspired by Hank Green)

In July, Hank Green got accused of using large language models to write a video. As the internet tends to do, they kind of tore him to shreds.

I thought he had a nuanced take, a quality set of actionable changes, clarification on how he was actually using AI. He admitted that been leaning on AI for research notes and he didn't like what the volume was doing to him. He said the dopamine he was getting from making more and more stuff wasn't good for him or for anybody else. Then he paused his personal channel, SMUSH, and 4×3, the word game I spent a whole post nitpicking in June.

He came back with these four self-governance rules:

• No portion of any script will be written, edited, or outlined by an LLM.
• The thesis of a video will always originate with a human.
• No image or music in a video will be generated by AI. If something is accidentally included, best efforts will be made to remove it.
• LLM outputs are not trusted as a source.

Source: Hank Green's AI Policy

Those are stricter than mine. I said in AI Slop Everywhere that this stuff is revolutionary and I still think that. But he's right that you should say out loud what you actually do, so here's mine:

My AI Policy

Assets are not AI generated. No generated images or art or graphics. Photos here are mine or credited to whoever took them.

I use AI on the code. This site is powered by a codebase that I maintain. I transparently use AI for all of that the same way I use it at work.

I always write the first draft. Every post starts with me typing into my Notes app before any model sees it. Then, I usually run it through one for grammar, typos, and formatting as a markdown file. If it suggests a better sentence, I don't paste the sentence. I go back and rewrite the line myself.

That third item is hard for me to define. "I use it to edit" can be a lot of things. My thought is that this is my space, and people reading this want to read MY words -- not Claude's words. So I do the thinking and the writing, but I do use it for my proofing. Ultimately, this is supposed to be a fun activity for me. And I don't think proofreading is fun.

As part of this exercise, I also did a little audit of my assets and I did find a few generated assets. Mostly icons. My (new) hard line for assets is mostly because I am tired of the AI aesthetic that is popping up all over the place. I also think that using AI takes away the joy I get from using my artistic brain hemisphere. Like -- look how freaking cute this drawing is.

Anyway! I am imperfect and my personal standards change and evolve, but moving forward, art is mine.

If any of this ever changes, I'll update this page.