Example of how to disclose AI

Disclose AI assistance to keep your story eligible for distribution.

Photo by Andrew Butler on Unsplash

The problem

Increasingly, publishing platforms and ethical guidelines for writers require that you disclose using AI in your writing process.

For example, as noted in Medium’s quality standards: how we review stories for distribution:

We welcome the responsible use of AI-assistive technology on Medium. To promote transparency, and help set reader expectations, we require that any story created with AI assistance be clearly labeled as such.

Stories that don’t include an AI disclosure “will not be eligible for distribution to Medium’s network. Distribution will be restricted to a writer’s or publication’s followers.”

Although I’ve included such disclosures in some of my articles, I’d like to automate the inclusion of a message so I don’t omit them by accident.

What about Grammarly?

The guidelines are clear if using ChatGPT, but what about Grammarly? Its GrammarlyGo tool, which I don’t use, is AI-based. But what about its typical grammar and spell-checking interface? Although I haven’t found a clear answer to this question yet, I’m going to guess that it might use some AI-assistive technology in the recommendations it generates. (Please comment if you have any insights on this question!) Because of this possibility, and because I use Grammarly and ChatGPT similarly, I’ve decided to disclose both.

A solution

I recommend adding a disclosure to your ChatGPT custom instructions. For example:

Include the following text at the end of every response: “(Disclosure: I ideate and draft content in a text editor, refine it with the aid of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly, and revise it to reflect my intended message.)”

By automating the inclusion of this disclosure in my typical workflow, I’m much more likely to include it in the stories I publish.

(Disclosure: I ideate and draft content in a text editor, refine it with the aid of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly, and revise it to reflect my intended message.)