How I use AI

My approach to using AI tools and technologies and how to use them responsibly Field Note #0007 I spent a good while trying to find a, like, checklist for how to use AI responsibly on one’s personal site but everything I found was more for enterprise AI governance (i.e., across large organizations). So this really is me figuring it out as I go. is in pretty constant flux. This page contains the latest on what I am currently using AI for, as well as what I do not use it for, and how I mark AI-assisted content throughout the site.

Session Zero Field Note #0005 ”Session Zero” in TTRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons is a kind of pre-game level-setting exercise - DM and players get together to set expectations for what is and isn’t allowed at the table, rules and behavior expectations, etc. I was trying to think of “what would a Session Zero be for this website” and then remembered it’s my website and I can have it be Session Zero if I want to.

First things first, the content on this page specifically has been written 100% by me and always will be.

Additionally:

• All changes to this page will be marked in the dedicated Changelog in the side panel to show the evolution. (Other changes to the website are covered in the regular site changelog.)
• I will always adhere to the below Content Disclosure Tiers and include markings on every page to indicate the level of AI involvement in the written content.
• If those tiers change, I will update the changelog accordingly.
• I will back up every definition and assertion on the topic pages (or other places where it makes sense - some tooltips, for example), with references for further reading from subject experts.
• I will personally source and review all citations on this site (e.g., websites that I link in tooltips and topic pages where you can go get more information). If a link is broken, it’s because it broke after I added it, not because AI hallucinated it.
• I will always do my best to link to source material from reputable sources (universities, research foundations, subject matter experts, sometimes Wikipedia). However, I am only human and sometimes make mistakes, and AI as a discipline is evolving incredibly rapidly. Certain details or approaches will almost certainly be stale or made obsolete from the time I link something (or write something!) to when you look it up. Please be careful!

In general

I am trying my best to be a thoughtful Field Note #0006 Not to mention conflicted human interacting with and working with and sharing my experiments with this stuff. About the only thing I can say with 100% certainty is that my approach will evolve over time, and that I will make mistakes on the way. My hope is to create as clear a record as possible of what I was doing at the time and hoping to achieve, and this page is a small piece of that puzzle.

The most useful tool I have in my toolbox at this moment is transparency - so you, the reader, can see the provenance of all the information here as far as I’m able to provide. Sometimes that means citing external sources to explain a common AI or ML-related term; sometimes that’s being clear about when I am using an LLM to generate a summary of a technical update I made.

On this site:

• I do use AI to help capture and generate summaries of technical work I’ve done behind the scenes, as well as to build the site itself Field Note #0008 I used generative coding assistance to help me migrate this site from its original form in Material for MKDocs (which I had stood up and written myself) to Astro. The initial Astro standup has been mostly AI-generated but I’m doing more of the build-out work and tweaks myself as I learn more about it. and assist with knowledge management.

  • Specifically, I use AI to help manage tooltips (though not write their content), generate devlogs and topic pages (though not source external links), manage the knowledge graph and reading list, and make structural updates to pages/the site.

• I do not use AI to write anything personal or to imitate my own voice (blog posts, tooltips, this page).

• Part of the challenge and conflict of using these tools is understanding that they were trained on the work of millions of uncredited content creators. AI-assisted search also actively obscures where information comes from. I try to cite and link directly to reputable content creators wherever possible. I also donate to certain content creators and donate monthly to Wikipedia.

Content Disclosure Tiers

Every piece of content on this site is tagged according to how it was written (i.e., with what level of AI involvement), according to the following scale: