A Proposed AI Contribution Scale
Categorizing AI-generated copy as “human vs AI” is not as binary as with AI-generated images or video. So Blair has developed an AI Contribution Scale to help us all be more transparent when using LLMs in the creation of written communication intended for prospects, clients, and peers.
[This episode’s notes are AI-0]
Links
“The Coming Collapse of ‘Thought Leadership’” by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com
Curt Jaimungal’s 5-minute YouTube video on why you shouldn’t let AI write for you
Transcript
David Baker: All right, Blair, today we're going to tackle another AI topic.
Blair Enns: This is not the AI episode [chuckles].
David: One of these days, maybe in 2029, we'll talk about AI and be willing to stand behind it. So far we're just terrified of our own thoughts about this.
Blair: Dancing around it.
David: Yes, really, but I'm interviewing you on a proposed AI contribution scale, the idea being that we should probably identify, self-identify how much we used AI. I'll tell you, it's like I got an email from a competitor of mine, yesterday-- Well, a friendly competitor. They do slightly different things, but somebody might hire them instead of me. I've always gotten their emails and I always loved getting them, because I would get some interesting ideas in there. This one just smacked of AI, so I copied it and pasted it into the AI detection thing, and it said immediately, "100% AI."
I just wanted to unsubscribe and never read anything from that person again, which is an overreaction. Is that what prompted this, or am I--
Blair: Yes, that's part of what's going on here. I want to contrast that with something else. We were recording this September 1st, last week. I didn't read it, but I think it was The Wall Street Journal, Stanley Druckenmiller wrote an op-ed. Now, Stanley Druckenmiller, if you're not a finance or an investment geek, is probably one of the world's foremost macro investors. "Macro" meaning he basically invests in economies of countries or currencies, and he's famous for-- I think his first big trade in the '80s was being long on the Deutschmark at the time of German reunification when everybody else was short.
He made a few billion, and then he shorted the British pound a couple of years later, made a few billion more, and he just kept going after opportunities. Anyway, so he worked for George Soros. Scott Bessent, who is the Treasury secretary. Is that right? I think he's the Treasury secretary.
David: Yes.
Blair: Of the United States.
David: At least this morning he was. [laughs]
Blair: Yes. He was Druckenmiller's protégé. The geeky stuff is, Bessent's been buying US Treasuries--
David: With borrowed money.
Blair: Yes. US Government is printing a whole bunch of debt, as it does, along with every other government in the Western world, and then Bessent is buying it to keep the interest rates low because they've got to refinance $10 trillion in debt in the next 12 months or so. Then Druckenmiller, his former mentor, wrote this op-ed, again, I think it was in The Wall Street Journal, saying, "This is a bad move." He wasn't really criticizing Bessent. He was essentially criticizing-- and this is somebody else's take on it that I just heard last week, and it makes sense. He was essentially criticizing the US Congress for putting Bessent in this position where he had to do this.
He publishes this substantive piece that says, "Hey, listen, we're headed towards a cliff here." The consensus reaction was not about the substance of his piece. It was about the fact that it was so clearly written by AI. People started saying, "AI wrote this," and he said, "Yes, I had AI write it." He had no qualms about it. Now there's this big discussion about, should you write an opinion piece in one of these big papers using AI? The answer is probably not. In Druckenmiller's case, I want to make the distinction between that piece of thought leadership that you read, and you were so disappointed by the author, because in that example, you were using that writing as a proxy for that person's thinking and their intelligence.
You're making some mistake, because that's the world we're coming from, where somebody's writing was a proxy for their thinking. The output was a proxy for the input, for what's going on in the brain of this person. In Druckenmiller's case, he's already regarded as one of the most accomplished investors of all time, and he's simply trying to communicate a point. Getting the AI to better communicate that point, I give him full props for that and for owning it. I want to make the distinction between two different types of writing. There is the writing to communicate, and that is writing that you might do internally.
Even my marketing writing, the marketing writing that we do, we use a fair amount of AI to help us in that writing. Then there's the writing that you do to think, to further your thinking, to deepen your thinking skills, to find out what it is that you actually know and understand. When you publish that form of writing, that is thought leadership. Let's make the distinction. I'm not saying AI is bad for writing, but I'm with you. There are certain types of writing where people are effectively lying, using AI to lie about the thinking that they did not do.
There's a lot of discussion in the world right now, and I think the EU is mandating watermarking of AI-created works, including writing. We can go down that rabbit hole, but that makes sense for images and video, perhaps. It doesn't make sense for writing, because there are a lot of valid different ways that you might have AI contribute to your writing. As long as you voluntarily disclose how you used AI in your writing, I think that's the answer. It's not watermarking. The problem with watermarking is it's binary, this is AI or this is human.
I created this AI contribution scale of 0 to 5, so six different levels, where you can voluntarily disclose the extent to which you used AI, and then you can let people decide for themselves whether or not the thinking is yours or the machine's.
David: I read through these six levels, from 0 and then 1, 2, up through 5, and I'm not sure I would list everything I've written in the last two and a half years as AI-1. In other words, it's AI-researched. To expand on that, you say that's written entirely by the author, with AI contributing research. AI might be used after the fact for proofreading and formatting or identifying awkward passages without suggesting corrective language. No substantive AI-generated language was retained unless cited. That's an exact description of how I use AI and have for the last two and a half years, and every single thing I write would fit in that category.
My first thought as a user, like if I didn't know you and I was just reading this suggested contribution scale, I would just have on my website this statement that says, "Everything you read here is AI-1, and AI-1 means this." Then I wouldn't call it out every time I wrote something. You're suggesting that people might use AI to different degrees, and so they might identify each use if it's different, right?
Blair: Yes, that's right. I published this about a week or so ago, and I have committed to, on my public blog posts, so not in the Win Without Pitching Academy, where I don't use any AI, but on my public blog posts and on LinkedIn, I will just list the AI contribution scale. I will say, "This is AI-0, human," or, "AI-1, AI-researched," and then there's "AI-2 is AI-assisted," "AI-3 is human/AI collaboration," "AI-4 is AI drafted," and "AI-5 is AI-generated." There are some governing principles at the top of the scale that we can talk about. If you want to look at the scale in detail, you can go to winwithoutpitching.com/aiscale, and we will put a link in the show notes.
David: I read about that. I didn't read it myself, but I think even if the content was really good, I imagine I would have quit reading early on, because everything that I have run through that little tester that has been 100% AI is too long, and it bores me to death. Maybe that's just me. Even if you're using AI to generate something that's really useful and good, it might still be very boring. I just don't understand why you would even do that.
Blair: I'm giving Stanley Druckenmiller the benefit of the doubt here, because he's quite an accomplished human being. His track record speaks for itself, and when he speaks, you should probably listen. If he chooses to use AI to help communicate his ideas, that's valid. However, I suspect it's also a person a little bit older who is a little bit behind the curve on AI usage here, and doesn't fully appreciate the negative responses that these things incite or inspire. I think if he were to write this a year from now, he probably would not use AI, or he would use it as a draft and then clean it up so it's less AI-y.
David: He might have been surprised at the reaction that his piece got, because he just thought it was a normal way to use AI. I'm waiting for the day when, let's say, that there isn't this scale and I'm reading stuff, and I get to know this person only through their writing, so that's the proxy for the person, for the thinking. Then I meet this person at an event. In conversation, they don't strike me at all like the pieces that I've read. I'm waiting for that day to come where there's such a divergent personality between the person who uses AI slowly to develop content, and then the person who's talking without referencing AI.
Although maybe at that point the glasses will probably be whispering something in his ear to make him more intelligent or something. [chuckles] Oh, goodness.
Blair: I have the sense that we're headed to this moment and fairly quickly, but I think the vehicle might not be going off the cliff. The vehicle is humanity's ability to undertake critical thinking. I thought we were headed off a cliff, but I think this thing's going to correct a little bit in that people who didn't write or people who were maybe part-time marginal writers, they didn't write because they weren't confident in their ability to write, started writing and putting out this generic bland content. I could just see humanity getting dumber by the day, and I was rubbing my hands in glee because in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
David: You could stand out from the crowd.
Blair: I think the backlash is coming. Now, let me argue the other side of it. The other day, yesterday, somebody posted in the Win Without Pitching Academy a comment about, "Using AI makes me better at things," and my response is, "I get that." I use Gmail, and I'm drafting an email, and Gemini is constantly suggesting edits, and it drives me crazy. I find it infuriating. At the same time, when I look at the suggestion, I am reminded of what a verbose, cumbersome writer I am. I'm a little bit pissed off at myself that I couldn't have arrived at a more succinct way of communicating this point, and the AI had to tell me that.
I don't write "content", "thought leadership" using those sorts of tools because I live in terror of my voice being robbed and being homogenized by AI, but in my day-to-day communications, AI is making me a better writer, so there is some validity to this. Again, in writing, unlike in other artistic domains, I think-- and let's come back to that, but in writing, it's a slippery slope when you start to use AI. I think this scale is great. Let me read the four statements at the top of the scale, if you don't mind, because I want to speak to the fact that when I published the post, it was the first post where I disclosed my use of AI.
I said, "This post is AI-4, AI drafted." The reason the post has such a high AI contribution is, when I came up with the idea of an AI contribution scale, the first thing I did is I prompted an LLM, and I said, "I want to create this AI contribution index or scale. Help me think through what the scale might be." AI drafted the first version of the scale. I then edited it. I posted a version of it in the Win Without Pitching Academy for our clients to see. I got some fantastic feedback from clients. I made some changes, then I posted it on LinkedIn.
Because the initial concept, a piece of the post itself, which is the index itself, was AI-drafted, I, by my own rules here, had to designate this post as AI-4, AI-drafted. Here are the four statements. At the top of the scale, it applies to each level of the scale. The first is, "The author uses this scale to disclose their use of AI in the creation of a written piece of work." The second is, "AI for spelling, grammar, and dictation is allowed at all levels." The third is, "The highest application level governs the entire piece." That's what I was referencing. I wrote the post myself.
It was AI-0, human, except for the index, which was AI-prompted or AI-drafted. Then the last governing statement at the top is, "At all levels, the author takes responsibility for the finished work."
David: At the bottom of this too, you've cited the Creative Commons. You said AI Contribution Scale by Blair Enns, Creative Commons Attribution 4, which implies certain things we don't need to get into. I don't think you can copyright something that's been written by AI. Was AI not used enough in this to keep that from happening?
Blair: Yes, it's a good question. I don't know. You can't copyright something that was written by AI, but then is that a binary statement? "This was written by AI, and this was not?" That question that's implied in your statement is the reason why this scale exists. The question of, can you copyright it? I don't know. I'm not copyrighting it. It's free for anybody to use. If you're going to use it, I'd like you to attribute.
David: Interesting. Can you imagine? I'm already falling asleep listening to the arguments in court over something like this.
Blair: I thought you were going to say listening to this conversation.
David: Oh. [laughs] I just think we're in this very uncertain, turbulent time and there's going to be some clarity some time next year in 2027. There's going to be some clarity, and we won't be talking quite as much about this. I think the people that are all gleeful about suddenly now, they're amazing authors are going to realize, "Oh, people don't think I'm an amazing author. They're not even reading my shit because it's so boring." They're going to come around to a little more reasonable place at some point. I don't know. I'm still very confused about it.
I just know I'm just having this very strong, visceral reaction to anything that looks and sounds like it's AI-written. The problem is that I'm coming across some things that were not written by AI, but I'm not sure, and I don't give it the benefit of the doubt, which is my problem.
Blair: Well, I think that's why trust is more important than ever. We talked about this on a previous episode. Relationships and trust are even more valuable, because at some point you're reading the output of an author enough, you come to accept that this is really them. You probably also accept that, they're probably using AI for research and some basics, but this is their voice. The moment you discover through whatever means, that it's not them, that it's substantially AI, that relationship is over.
David: That's what this is meant to do, is to cut that off at the pass and say, "Listen, I'm going to tell you upfront the role AI had in this," so that the reader doesn't lose trust in the writer.
Blair: Yes, exactly. Do you have any feedback or critique of the scale itself? 0 is human. One is AI-researched, 2 is AI-assisted. 3 is human/AI collaboration. 4 is AI-drafted, and 5 is AI-generated.
David: I read through them and they all made very clear sense to me, and I knew exactly where I would fit, how I use it, and I thought of some other people how they would use it too. I really liked the fact that at the beginning of the second statement you said was AI for spelling, grammar, and dictation is allowed at all levels. I'm not sure I would've included grammar there because that strikes me as essential to writing, but spelling, absolutely. I don't understand why anybody wouldn't run everything they write through Claude. Not emails, but if I'm writing a weekly piece or something, I'll just copy the Word file. I write in Word.
Most people write in Google Docs, I think, but I still write in Word. I just copy it and then I just have this thing I paste right into Claude that says, "Check this for obvious typographical errors. Don't touch my strange use of punctuation and grammar." It says something almost exactly like that, and the stuff it finds-- and this is after I've run it through spelling check on Word, which misses things regularly. It's amazingly good. I don't know why you wouldn't do that at whatever level, but I think maybe I wouldn't include grammar in that one thing.
Blair: I'm with you. This governing statement came from a client of mine who's a lawyer who has some experience in AI disclosure in some regulated fields. My reaction was the same. I generally don't use it for grammar, but spelling and dictation-- I don't use dictation either, but I can understand how people would. Grammar is the slippery slope, so like you, I have a prompt that says, " Critique this for sentence structure and clarity, but do not suggest new language." Tell me what's wrong with it, don't tell me how to fix it, because that is going into the domain of now I'm using language given to me by AI.
David: I haven't gotten any complaints from the typos that used to always pop up no matter how carefully I tried to keep them out, which has been great. No, other than that, I think this is really good. You're going to start tagging anything that you write, not the daily stuff you write for your group, but LinkedIn posts and blog posts and so on?
Blair: Yes.
David: Well, that'll be interesting to see what kind of feedback you get.
Blair: I have to tell you, for the very first post to put AI-4 on there killed me. It was so hard to put that on there, and then I explained why it's AI-4. I think if I ever get anything above a 1, I will explain why it is what it is, and exactly how I used AI.
David: If nothing else, this should really prompt people to discuss this. I'd love for people to listen to this episode, print out this five-stage scale, I guess it's six stages, and then have a conversation about a policy. What are the policy decisions at work when you're doing work for clients? Should you disclose this to your clients? What are you expecting of your people? I think it'd be good to at least have a discussion, even if there isn't clarity at the end of it. At least have a discussion about it.
Blair: I agree. If people want to look at the scale, it's winwithoutpitching.com/aiscale. Feel free to use it, link to it, modify it. It's yours.
David: All right. Thank you, Blair.
Blair: Thanks, David.
[Trascription by GoTranscript.com is AI-2]