# 800.015 - Personal AI Use Policy Draft: 9/1/2026 LLM use is one tool in my framework of academic and creative practice. Like a bibliographic citation manager, library catalog, grammar checker, or style guide—it is an assistive technology that supports but does not replace my own cognitive and creative work. I write independently, while LLMs provide some of the functions of a research assistant, an editorial assistant, a system administrator, and a sounding board. ## I use generative AI in the following ways: ### Research and Ideation: LLMs are used during early stages of conceptualization to provide extremely broad general knowledge, and to identify relevant bodies of specialized knowledge and existing research. During literature review I use LLMs to surface, summarize, and contextualize sources, which I then independently obtain, read, evaluate, and analyze for myself. ### Writing and Revision: When drafting my work, the writing and ideas are my own. Claims, facts, and quotations are drawn and verified from original sources by me, not by the LLM. I use LLMs as a glorified thesaurus, but the models do not write for me. During editing, I consult LLMs to suggest minor structural and rhetorical revisions to strengthen my framing and articulation, and for feedback on style to improve accessibility of my concepts and themes. I will always present my own position, unique perspective, and authentic voice—never an algorithmic aggregate or flattened average. ### Administration and Publishing: I use LLMs and generative tools to automate tedious administrative tasks and manage minutiae like interlinking pages and maintaining tag vocabularies. ### Consent and Compensation: In alignment with my opinions on open educational resources and intellectual property, I release my work under CC0. In alignment with my views on the social value of providing economic support for artists and academics, I strive to compensate and credit living artists, authors, and educators. I do not upload the work of others, confidential, or proprietary information into public models. ## My Reasoning: Despite the risks and clear costs of this technology, I've come to this framework of use after careful deliberation, for the following reasons: ### Values and Ethics: The motivating principles behind my work are discovery, creativity, and personal growth. I see the writing, videos, and other artifacts I produce as *evidence* of my inquiry and creative practice, not as my purpose. My own experience using generative systems has been the activation and facilitation of these drives. I am guided by ethical commitments to collective social, economic, and environmental justice; I strive to balance these against individual freedom, authenticity, integrity, accuracy, privacy, and accountability. I do not believe that individual, considered, ethical usage of generative transformer systems is a privileged threat to these values. I am not arguing that the contemporary social and economic frameworks that support generative AI systems are harmless. I am rejecting the claim that AI is a unique threat that warrants exceptional moral scrutiny. Many consumer activities incur similar or greater social and environmental costs—including but not limited to professional sports, automobiles, air travel, meat-based diets, cell phones, social media surveillance, targeted marketing, monopolistic retailers, and affluencer culture. My views do not extend to condone the use of AI for military, surveillance, financial technologies, or information warfare. My position does not excuse abusive, exploitative, or fraudulent practices by corporations that provide AI services; it does not provide cover for companies who use the real or imagined power of AI to manipulate the labor market; nor is it a justification for the economic and social incentives that motivate the mass-production of low effort, low quality, and unethically produced slop. I am not using AI for any of these purposes. It is the reality of our condition that we must each choose whether, and how to engage with these practices based on our individual identities and social priorities. I also believe that decision implicates us to accept certain personal responsibilities to push for systemic reform with our ongoing engagement and economic choices. ### Responsibilities I am an advocate for regulations that mandate data center transparency, closed cooling systems, use of sustainable power, consent and fair compensation for use of original work used to train the models, responsible governance and safety assurance, and true-cost economics which place the burden of the environmental and economic risks and impacts of the Generative AI and Data Center industries onto the commercial enterprises rather than local communities. I will make an effort to choose commercial systems that best reflect these values, and use open source and explicitly ethical models when possible. I will be transparent about model usage, accountable for my errors, and remain sensitive to the real social, economic, and environmental impacts of LLM usage. My position will inevitably change as things evolve and as I learn more. I am [open](mailto:[email protected]) to good-faith feedback on this policy. ## See also [ALLi AI Policy Guidance](https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/ai-policy/)