A blogger has published a policy on AI use in essay writing, clarifying that while AI serves as an extensive thinking aid, they retain authorship and rewrite AI suggestions to preserve their own voice. The declaration responds to a recent call for transparency about AI use in written work.
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A blogger published a personal policy on AI use in essay writing, stating that while AI helps with thinking, they retain primary authorship and rewrite AI suggestions to match their own voice.
Why it matters
The declaration responds to a recent call from another writer (@dynomight) for transparency about AI use in essays — a question becoming common as AI writing tools spread. The blogger's approach (using AI as thinking aid but maintaining human voice and authorship) illustrates one practical middle ground.
What to watch
The blogger notes they will label any unchanged sentences from AI in essays cross-posted to LessWrong, and recalls only one instance over 1½ years where they included an unedited, unquoted AI sentence.
The blogger opened their disclosure by acknowledging a recent call from @dynomight asking writers to declare their AI use, framing this as a reasonable request. Their stated policy centers on a single principle: AI can assist in thinking, but they retain primary authorship over the words that appear in essays. They clarified that unless explicitly stated otherwise, nearly every sentence not quoted directly from another source was written by them, not generated by AI. The one exception they allowed is when discussion with an AI yields a point they genuinely agree with—in such cases, they may incorporate one or two sentences directly from the AI. However, they emphasized sensitivity to voice: sentences that feel out of place or inconsistent with their own style are rewritten until they align. The blogger reflected on their actual practice, noting that over 1½ years they can recall only a single essay in which they included an unedited AI sentence without marking it as a quote or revising it, and that they found the experience jarring enough on re-reading that it discouraged repetition. Looking forward, they committed to labeling any unchanged sentences sourced from AI in essays that are cross-posted to LessWrong—a gesture toward reader transparency.
The blogger's policy reflects a practical tension at the center of AI disclosure debates: whether AI use constitutes a failure of authorship or simply a new form of thinking aid. By declaring that AI helps with ideation but that the final sentence-level voice remains theirs, the blogger positions themselves in a middle ground—neither claiming AI wrote nothing, nor treating AI suggestions as finished prose worthy of direct inclusion without editorial judgment. The explicit note that sentences 'don't feel like they're in my own voice' underscores a key principle: voice and authorship remain distinct from the origin of an idea. The rarity of unedited AI sentences (one in 1½ years) suggests the blogger's editorial threshold is high. The commitment to label unchanged AI sentences in cross-posted work signals deference to LessWrong's (or the readership's) interest in transparency.
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