Transparency and Disclosure.

When should you tell people AI helped? The answer is more nuanced than you think.

After this lesson you'll know

When AI disclosure is legally required, ethically required, or optional
How to disclose AI use without undermining your work
The difference between "AI-generated" and "AI-assisted"
Industry-specific disclosure norms

The Spectrum

Not all AI use requires the same level of disclosure.

There's a massive difference between "AI wrote this entire article and I clicked publish" and "I used AI to brainstorm ideas then wrote everything myself." The ethics of disclosure sit on a spectrum:

Must Disclose

AI-generated content published as journalism or research
AI-created images or videos of real people
Academic work (essays, papers, code assignments)
Legal or financial documents
Customer-facing chatbots (people should know they're talking to AI)

Should Probably Disclose

Blog posts or articles substantially written by AI
Marketing copy that makes factual claims
Reports or analyses where AI did the heavy lifting
Creative work submitted to competitions or for credit

Disclosure Optional

Using AI for brainstorming or ideation
Grammar and spell-checking (AI has done this for decades)
Internal emails or notes you wrote but AI helped polish
Using AI as a research starting point that you verified
Code that you wrote with AI assistance and fully reviewed

The Language

"AI-generated" vs "AI-assisted" — the distinction matters.

AI-Generated

AI created the core content with minimal human editing. The ideas, structure, and most of the language came from AI.

AI-Assisted

A human created the core content and used AI as a tool — for editing, suggestions, research, or refinement. The ideas and direction are human.

Most professional AI use falls into "AI-assisted." Using AI to help you write an email is no different from using a calculator to check math — the thinking is yours, the tool made it faster.

Frameworks

Structured approaches to AI disclosure.

Different organizations and industries are developing formal frameworks for AI disclosure. Understanding these helps you make informed decisions about your own disclosure practices.

The Provenance Model

Disclose the origin of each component: who conceived the idea, who (or what) drafted it, who edited it, who approved it. This gives the audience a full chain of authorship.

The Percentage Model

Estimate what percentage of the work was AI vs. human. "Approximately 30% AI-drafted, 70% human-written and edited." Simple, intuitive, though imprecise.

The Role Model

Describe AI's role using familiar metaphors: "AI served as a research assistant," "AI was used as an editor," "AI functioned as a brainstorming partner." This contextualizes AI involvement without percentages.

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