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| 1 | +.. _ai_policy: |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +########################################### |
| 4 | + AI Policy for Developers and Contributors |
| 5 | +########################################### |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +This is our AI Policy **for** *human contributors* about **using** |
| 8 | +AI assistance with details on: |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +- Legal/IP requirements |
| 11 | +- Disclosure obligations |
| 12 | +- Authorship warranties |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +For instructions **to** *AI assistants* (e.g. |
| 15 | +`Anthropic Claude <https://www.anthropic.com/claude>`_, |
| 16 | +`Google Gemini <https://gemini.google.com/app>`_, |
| 17 | +`OpenAI ChatGPT <https://openai.com/chatgpt/overview/>`_, |
| 18 | +`Microsoft Copilot <https://copilot.microsoft.com/>`_ or other) |
| 19 | +about **providing** AI assistance, please see |
| 20 | +:download:`CLAUDE.md </_static/CLAUDE.md>`. |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +.. important:: |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | + **The Bottom Line - Make the right thing the easy thing.** |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | + Your pull request is your byline. When you submit code, you are |
| 27 | + signing your name to it and warranting that you are the **Author**. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | + Whether you used an AI as an **Editor** or a **Ghostwriter**, the |
| 30 | + final work must be a product of **Your** skill, judgment, and creative |
| 31 | + labor. |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | + An AI can never be credited as an author or co-author. |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +---- |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +******************************************************* |
| 38 | + A Helpful Analogy: The AI as an Editor or Ghostwriter |
| 39 | +******************************************************* |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +To understand the role you, the human contributor, must play when using |
| 42 | +AI tools, it's helpful to draw an analogy from the world of writing and |
| 43 | +publishing. For any code you submit to be legally sound and protect the |
| 44 | +integrity of this project, your use of AI **must** mirror the |
| 45 | +relationship between an author and their editor or ghostwriter. |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +Scenario 1: The AI as an Editor |
| 48 | +=============================== |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +In publishing, an author writes the original manuscript—the story, the |
| 51 | +characters, the plot. They then give it to an editor. The editor doesn't |
| 52 | +write the story, but they refine it. They correct grammar, improve |
| 53 | +sentence structure, point out inconsistencies, and suggest better ways |
| 54 | +to phrase things. The final work is stronger, but the **Author** is, |
| 55 | +without question, the person who wrote the original manuscript. |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +This is a perfect model for acceptable AI use: |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +- **You** write the original, substantive code: the architecture, the |
| 60 | + core logic, the solution to the problem. |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +- The **AI** acts as your editor: it helps you refactor for clarity, |
| 63 | + finds potential bugs (typos), suggests more efficient syntax, or |
| 64 | + helps write comments and documentation for *your* code. |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +In this role, the AI is a powerful tool that polishes your original |
| 67 | +work. You remain the sole, undisputed Author. |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +Scenario 2: The AI as a Ghostwriter |
| 70 | +=================================== |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | +A ghostwriter is hired to write a book *for* another person, based on |
| 73 | +detailed outlines and extensive interviews. The public figure who hired |
| 74 | +them takes the byline and is considered the author. They are also fully |
| 75 | +responsible for the book's content, accuracy, and any legal issues that |
| 76 | +may arise. They don't just blindly publish the ghostwriter's draft; they |
| 77 | +must review, revise, and ultimately approve every word, making it their |
| 78 | +own. |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | +This is also an acceptable, but more demanding, model for AI use: |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | +- **You** act as the commissioner: you provide a detailed, specific |
| 83 | + prompt to the AI, outlining exactly what you need a block of code to |
| 84 | + do. |
| 85 | + |
| 86 | +- The **AI** generates a "first draft" of that code block. |
| 87 | + |
| 88 | +- **Your critical responsibility** is to act as the final author: you |
| 89 | + must meticulously review, test, debug, and often significantly modify |
| 90 | + that code. You must understand it completely and integrate it into |
| 91 | + the larger project. By doing so, you take full accountability for it. |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +In this role, you are using the AI to generate raw material, but it is |
| 94 | +your intellectual labor — your review, validation, and integration — |
| 95 | +that transforms it into a valid contribution. |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | +************************************************** |
| 98 | +The Role an AI Can Never Fill: Author or Co-Author |
| 99 | +************************************************** |
| 100 | + |
| 101 | +The hard line is this: an AI can never be credited as an **Author** or |
| 102 | +**Co-Author**. |
| 103 | +It has no legal standing, cannot be held accountable, and cannot hold |
| 104 | +copyright. Any contribution where the AI was the primary creator and the |
| 105 | +human was merely a prompter without significant review or modification |
| 106 | +is not copyrightable and cannot be accepted. |
| 107 | + |
| 108 | +Accepting such a contribution would have severe consequences for the |
| 109 | +project. The code could be considered public domain (and thus |
| 110 | +un-licensable) or, worse, a derivative work of the AI's training data |
| 111 | +carrying unknown, potentially mixed, viral or even contradictory license |
| 112 | +obligations. |
| 113 | + |
| 114 | +In either case, our codebase would cease to be a clean, single-license |
| 115 | +work and would become a legally ambiguous patchwork. |
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