Conscientious AI Use: Disclose It Or Don’t Use It

Back when I was doing Podcast Advent and in one article, How I Produce a Podcast Completely From my iPhone, I included this at the bottom:

Disclosure: This article was written after I recorded the embedded episode and fed it through ChatGPT. Then I edited it for voice and clarity.

While I was reading The Coming Wave and thinking about how I use AI, I came to this realization: if you use AI to write, record, or produce something, it should be disclosed in the same way affiliate links or paid promotion has to be disclosed.

I’m certainly not the first person to think this. There are books where ChatGPT has an author credit.

It actually reminded me that Andrew Davis said something similar during is talk at CEX earlier this year. It was all about creating a Digital Doppelgänger (he named is Drewdini), and one of the points of the talk was to let people know if and when they’re interacting with an AI version of you.

That if you’re using AI so prominently, you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. I love that idea.

I’ve gone ahead and added disclosures to both this site, and Podcast Workflows.

Why Add the Disclosures?

It’s all about honesty and transparency.

I was reading a newsletter from a creator — a big, influential, people hang on their every word creator — who talked about how they decide what to prioritize.

They were unequivocally describing an Eisenhower Matrix. Except they didn’t use the term Eisenhower Matrix anywhere in the newsletter. They passed it off as their framework.

That always makes me question the integrity of the writer, but this instance is even worse considering the guy who named the Eisenhower Matrix, Stephen R. Covey (author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), named it after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, from whom he got the idea.

Aside: I get that multiple people can come up with the same idea. Newton and Leibniz basically invented Calculus separately, at the same time. But 7 Habits came out 35 years ago, and is one of the most ubiquitous productivity books every published.

Disclosures say, “I respect you enough to be completely transparent about where this content came from.”

Ideas Gain Momentum by Building on Each Other

When I was writing my first book, I got some early feedback from my editor that I cited too many sources, and that people are reading the book because I’m the expert.

Perhaps my academic background (my first published work was an academic paper), but I fully believe you should cite the sources you’re pulling from, always.

The reason our society got to where it is today is because ideas can be easily shared and built upon. The Renaissance was brought about in part due to the Printing Press, which made it easier than ever to disseminate knowledge. The internet was invented to help academics share research.

And as we use AI in more ways, it’s important for us to continue to give credit where credit is due.

Trust and integrity are everything in a world where is so easy to create misinformation and sell snake oil. If you use AI to create large portions of something, disclosing it will help keep that trust.

And if you’re struggling, use my copy as a starting point. AI had no part in writing it.

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The featured image, which you may have seen on social media, was generated in part using Canva’s AI generation tool.