Does Your Site Need a /ai Page?

After seeing an example on cassidoo's site, I decided to add an "AI Transparency" page to my site as well.

Both she and the post she links make a really good point about how, if a person or company is transparent about how they use AI, it helps us trust that their work is more authentic in general. They recommend adding a page to your site (e.g. /ai) that details how you make use of generative AI (or not). From the simplest "No posts on this site are written with generative AI," to a longer, more detailed breakdown, the idea is not to cover your bases with legalese, but to be authentic, clear, and real. It's not a bad thing to use AI, necessarily. It's a tool like any other, and a user needs to understand how it works--pro's, con's, strengths, and dangers. But it's good to be open about it to help people understand and gain context for your work.

And if you do decide to add one to your site, you can add your site to this public database of /ai page-having sites!

Comments

[Ben Sinclair]

Good shout. I've just done it.

[Marlon López]

The main purpose of the /ai page on your website is to promote trust and transparency.

Inspired by that idea from the AI Manifesto blog, by Damola Morenikeji, I’m exploring how to include similar information within the mobile (Android/iOS) app.

One approach could be to add this information to the app’s settings screen — for example, by creating a menu item under “About” or “General.” This entry could either link externally to the /ai page on the website, or open a new internal screen/composable within the app itself.

Note: When adapting the AI page for mobile, the content might differ slightly, though the underlying concepts would remain the same.

[Ava Nichols]

This is a good call

[Cesar Aguirre]

I wrote mine after reading this post. Thanks for sharing!

[Jarne]

I think that's a great idea. But how am I supposed to know if usage mentioned under /ai actually corresponds to the truth? At the end, it still comes down to our own evaluation if a page uses AI to generate texts or not.

[Ryan Palo]

That’s true, we can’t trust anything blindly. I’m just hoping the transparency on my AI page gives people another data point to help build that trust.

[Roshan Sharma]

"Great insight! I like the idea of a dedicated /AI page for transparency. How do you decide what level of AI usage to disclose without overwhelming visitors?"

[Ryan Palo]

I’d say it depends on you and what you want to share. I also think it’s fair to hit the important parts you want to share and link to other projects or pages/posts that have more detail, if you want to go that route. But it’s your site, and people came to you, so you can kind of write whatever you want to write 😁

[Oscar]

going to look into adding this to my sites, cool idea!

[david duymelinck]

If you see AI as a tool why would it be more important than any other generator tool that is deserves a dedicated page?
Does it make your content more authentic if you break down your AI use?

I agree that transparency matters. On the other hand I see how the page can just be a marketing sticker. I randomly clicked on pages in the public database, and I noticed people already removed the page or linked it to a more general about page.

What is next, adding an ai attribute to html tags to distinguish which parts of the page are AI generated?

<p ai="none">Look at me, I'm writing with my keyboard.</p>

<p ai="mixed">I'm a human edited text.</p>

<p ai="all">No human touched this text.</p>

Maybe I'm naive but I think if you have something to be proud of it will be recognized by other people when you make it public. Sometimes people will see the benefit, and other times it will fall in deaf ears.

[Ryan Palo]

Sure! For me, I put in a ton of work and love into my writing, and I want to make sure that’s extra clear to my readers so that they can share in that. I think the difference between AI and other generators is that other generators are creating data from existing data in predictable ways, while AI-generated article content is actively trying to read like new, novel information written by a human. Can be useful, but in the context of a personal blog/website where, at least in my mind, the whole point is to showcase information that is unique to you or your company, I feel like the default expectation is that you came up with the content.

Maybe it’s a good way to attribute the thousands of silent contributors to your content that fed the training data, since, if you just copied content from someone’s post, you would definitely credit them.

[david duymelinck]

I understand the copyright argument and the artisan argument. And I don't disagree with those points.

The questions I have to do with the idea of an how-I-use-AI page. Do you know each time you use AI? It is creeping into every app under the sun.

If you state you don't use AI and people can detect AI behavior of some sort, does that makes you less genuine, less authentic?

[Ben Sinclair]

I think it's more along the lines of a humans.txt file or a foaf indicator.

[david duymelinck]

Humans.txt was also my first thought while I was reading the post. While there is a section for the technologies used, it doesn't go into details.

The question I still ask myself what is the long term benefit?
At the moment it feels more as a rebellious act, because most people pages I have seen write they don't use AI. It is also the first suggestion in the manifesto.

Adding the ai attribute to HTML is more fine grained than a single page. Instead of the ai attribute a data-created-by attribute with one ore more values is better. You can start using it today, and add it to whatever tag you like.

[medawn astar]

I did it now on my site

eltapalomesr.com/p/ai.html?m=1