Last Updated: June 22 2026
1. The Core Philosophy (The “Why”)
I’m completely committed to being as transparent as I possibly can on my use of Artificial Intelligence on this website and in the other written and multimedia material that I produce.
If you are like me, then you want to know WHO created the material you are reading, and or listening to. I do NOT hate all use of AI, I think it’s incredibly capable in identifying areas that need special attention. However, generating it without acknowledging it / citing it’s usage is a bit on the “shady” side, if you ask me.
To use it for fun, is one thing, because it is incredibly fun to see what you can do with it; however, trying to pass AI-generated material off as your own in it’s entirety is “less than credible,” shall we say.
- The Promise: As an independent musician and creator, I realize the importance of trust in my relationship with my readers / listeners. And because technology is changing so rapidly, I want to be 100% transparent about how I create my content and where the AI tools do – and do not – fit into my process.
- The Goal: To be 100% crystal clear in my Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage. “Are we clear?!!.. “Crystal….”…. (nod to a few movies from the past…)…
2. Music & Original Concepts (The Red Line)
NO AI IN MY MUSIC. Granted, one could argue that synths and virtual instruments themselves are kind of cheating. And I would say, yes to some degree, except for the fact I still have to play the notes myself. Yes, you can program the notes on the piano roll (for example), or let an arpeggiator fly through some notes, but still… I have to initiate the process by playing, or inputting a note, scale, or chord progression.
One can use ready-made audio loops as well, but again, those loops are set (for the most part even though they can adjust to the tempo of the song), and the musician has to come up with what to play around that loop.
Even with Logic Pro Session Players, those players have to follow music that has been created by the musician. Just letting a session player play to nothing would be kind of pointless.
- Zero AI Generation: All of my original music will be 100% of my own personal creation. The music itself, any lyrics that might be written on occasion. Now, with the lyrics, I might use “Master Writer” on occasion; however, that’s like using a dictionary, and artists have used Master Writer for decades now.
- Human-First Production: All music produced will be my own meager attempts at producing the best quality (hopefully broadcast quality one day) I can. That being said, I (might) demo using SUNO for comparison purposes of ideas that I don’t care get uploaded to their servers. Then there’s LANDr… It’s possible I could experiment with their mixing and mastering processes. Izotope RX is also software that I plan to incorporate into my mastering processes at some point.
- Whatever gets used will be annotated.
3. Text & Writing (Assistive Ideation)
The bulk of any piece of written material will ALWAYS be of my own creation; however, to not use AI for ideation purposes is kind of limiting. Now, there is the argument that if everyone embarking on similar project uses some form of AI to generate ideas, then they would all receive very similar outputs from the AI ultimately producing the same outputs for their individual projects. And I completely agree…
That’s why I take any ideas I get from AI and perform some extreme personalization of them. You don’t have to take what the AI gives you and run with it. You should, instead see how the output really applies to your unique situation at the moment.
I used AI to help with this AI Disclosure Statement, as well as my Privacy Statement, Terms and Condition Statement, and Affiliate Disclosure Statement. The last three I left pretty much alone because they are pretty generic for most sites anyway. I only edited what was absolutely necessary. There was really no need to get extra creative on any of those pages. You just have to make sure what needs to get covered, gets covered.
- Brainstorming & Structure: I occasionally use AI for brainstorming ideas for blog posts and YouTube video Ideas. I use it more for gathering the boring technical aspects of certain things. For example, I use it to gather the technical aspects of guitar pedals, amplifiers, synth features, etc. for inclusion into a blog post. The bulk of the post(s) are my words (maybe with an AI outline that gets heavily edited), then if the post benefits from it, I include the technical aspects generated by AI (“Perplexity” for this particular step – most accurate at the moment).
- The Final Polish: Ultimately, I do everything I can to make sure everything I create and post somewhere on the internet receives one last, personal look from me to ensure I’ve checked and re-checked elements that might need a little extra attention. Then press “Publish.”… Will there be mistakes? Of course. Nobody’s perfect. Me being the least, and furthest from “perfect.”…
4. Imagery & Visuals (Editing vs. Generation)
I’ve done (a little) photography in my distant past and still have a large collection of halfway decent photos from the past that I could still rely on in an emergency. So, most of the imagery on this site will be of my own creation. I try to create a quick “featured image” note at the bottom of every post letting you know where the image came from, how it was produced, etc.
Also important to note… I don’t consider using tools like Photoshop and Canva the same thing as using AI to “Generate” an image. Now, I have used tools like, Nano Banana to help clean up an old image and it does fairly well; however, I ask it to not alter the original image, which it normally does not. You have to check each time, of course. That being said…
- AI-Assisted Editing: I sometimes use Nano Banana (maybe others in the future) to help clean up photos. I ask it to help with things like: sharpness, color enhancement or saturation, denoise, etc. But even this usage is very minimal and annotated where necessary.
- AI-Generated Imagery Policy: As a rule, I will NOT use AI to generate an image, even a thumbnail for a YouTube video; however, if I do use it in the future, everything about that image’s creation will be explained thoroughly. If I use it in YouTube thumbnail, that bit of information will be in the video description somewhere, for example. If use it in a blog post featured image, it will generally be mentioned at the bottom (or somewhere) of the post.
5. Commitment to Updates
I will always do my best to maintain the “last updated” note at the top of this page and other similar pages. Technology is changing fast everyday. Those changes may introduce changes to how I run this website and or my YouTube channel.
Final Notes:
I don’t see the point in having a personal website, or creating original music if neither of these are truly original to you (me). I see AI only as a POTENTIAL tool (i.e. doesn’t have to be used at all) for taking some ideas a little further, but only if the idea doesn’t get completely taken over by AI in the process.
Sincerely,
MidJourney Prompt: “Unhappy sad AI robot headshot.” (Why not use AI for AI Disclosure).
