AI Disclaimers

I bet you use AI more than you think you do.

I’m amazed if you manage to live in the modern world without AI: I really am.

The problem is I don’t think you do.

This was a postcard I attempted to sell for money. I still have it. I did not get money.

Things that you can’t do if you swear off AI:

1. Netflix, Spotify, or any other streaming platform
   Every one of them uses AI to determine recommendations, make playlists, and even shuffle.

2. Use a word processor or mobile phone keyboard:
   Microsoft Word uses machine learning for spell check, grammar check, and auto-correct.

3. Use a search engine:
   Every single search function on the internet is using machine learning to generate results.

4. Use social:
   Your feed is absolutely AI generated. Even here on Substack.

5. Anything Smart Home or Voice Activated
   The tech is based around AI Voice Recognition profiles.

6. Electrify, Heat or Cool your house on the grid:
   The grid uses AI to predict and deliver utilities

7. Use the internet:
   DNS uses AI. Unless you are literally typing the IP address from memory for every connection you make (and never use apps or operating systems)

8. Access healthcare:
   Your chart is absolutely being scanned with an AI for data entry.

Shall I go on?

I really don’t need to, because if you’ve found this article AI was involved in getting here. Because you are either accessing by a device that is using AI or reading it from a hand-written paper document written by someone who has.

Everyone uses AI

It’s ok. I’ll hold your hand. We can get through this.

When people think of AI they think of ChatGPT. You put in a prompt and out comes some formatted generally coherent text or an image. You’re replacing the work of a writer or an artist; you’re plagiarizing someone’s work.

Ok.

But that’s not what I or other creatives are doing (unless you are prompt engineering your whole creative work, in which case you aren’t a creative).

When I search for a date on google to make sure I know when the Second Council of Trent was, I just used an AI LLM. Search engines are prompts that function exactly the way AI queries run.

The problem is most people don’t know what an AI looks like unless it’s been clearly branded as such. Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law famously states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Naomi’s First Law is hereby:

“Any AI function that is initiated beneath the Graphical User Interface (GUI) or has been around long enough to become ubiquitous is no longer considered AI by creatives.”

How to write a real AI Disclaimer

I someone asks, “Naomi, did you use AI to help write this?” how do I respond.

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Option 1: Yes — Branded as an exile and a species traitor.

Option 2: What do you define as AI? — I don’t know how you will react, but I’m guessing you are not going to have a nuanced answer.

Option 3: No — I’m a liar. I hate myself.

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This is why we need a better question.

When people ask me did you use AI I substitute in my mind the following:

Did you use AI to generate the ideas, words, or pictures you are presenting without actually thinking of, writing, or drawing the significant majority of the underlying and final product?

This I can declaratively say no to.

This is my original creative work from concept to execution. AI contributed to it only in the basic acceptable standards like spell-check, internet connectivity, underlying platform infrastructure, and online searches.

Not one word or pixel of the artwork contained here was generated by an AI.

2026 © Naomi Haleen, Naoscent