CREATIVE TRANSPARENCY

My Personal AI
Code of Conduct.

AI is an incredible tool. I use it, and I don’t believe that using AI automatically makes something less creative, less thoughtful, or less human.

THE PROMISE

Human-made.
Human-led.

But I also believe that when you read something I’ve written, watch something I’ve made, or look at something I’ve created, you should know what part of it actually came from me.

So, unless I clearly state otherwise inside the work itself, this is my personal promise for how I will—and will not—use AI in the things I create.

My basic rule is simple: AI can help me organize, transcribe, edit, and catch mistakes. It does not get to replace my thinking, my ideas, my voice, or the creative work itself.

01

Books

When you read one of my books, I want you to know that the ideas, stories, arguments, examples, humor, and creative decisions came from me.

I do sometimes use AI during the writing process, but primarily as a more intelligent version of a transcriber, organizer, and proofreader.

1. I start with me.

I’ll record a voice note, do an information dump, or write out everything I’m thinking about a chapter or idea. Then I might give that material to AI and ask: “Help me turn this into an outline.”

The thoughts are mine. AI is helping me organize them.

2. I adjust the outline myself.

I add things, remove things, rearrange ideas, and decide what I actually want to say. Once I’m happy with the structure, I may ask AI to create a rough draft based on that outline and the material I’ve already provided.

For a traditional nonfiction book, I often go much deeper before doing this. I’ll repeat the voice-note/info-dump process for individual sections of the outline until I’ve essentially created a book blueprint—a highly detailed, sometimes four- or five-page outline where individual bullet points may contain entire paragraphs of my thoughts.

At that point, I may use AI to turn those voice notes and notes into what I call a vomit draft: an intentionally rough first draft that stays as close as possible to what I actually said, including my tone, phrasing, examples, and word choices.

In other words, I’m not asking AI, “Write a chapter about leadership.” I’m giving it my thoughts about leadership and asking it to help me get those thoughts onto the page.

3. I rewrite and edit the draft myself.

I go through the draft and change anything that doesn’t sound like me, doesn’t communicate what I mean, or simply isn’t good enough. Then AI steps out of the process.

4. The developmental editing is human.

This is where the actual book gets better. I reread it. I walk away from it and come back later. Other human beings read it. I rethink sections. I cut things. I add things. I rewrite things.

AI is not doing the developmental thinking for me.

5. AI comes back at the very end as a proofreader.

Once I believe the book is finished, I may ask AI to look for mistakes I should correct—grammar issues, inconsistencies, typos, awkward wording, or things I may have overlooked. I decide what to change. Then I publish.

What I will not do

I will not ask AI to invent the substance of a book for me and put my name on it. I will not ask it to generate my ideas, stories, arguments, personal experiences, lessons, or point of view. I will not use it as a substitute for actually having something to say.

The easiest way to describe my approach is this: AI can help me get through the blank page, but it doesn’t get to decide what goes on the page.

It helps me get what’s already in my head onto paper, and later helps me catch mistakes before that paper reaches you. That’s the back-and-forth I follow when using AI to assist with book writing.

02

Blog Posts

My use of AI in blog writing depends on where the article came from.

If I sit down to write an original article from scratch, I want the thinking and substance to come from me, following essentially the same principles I use for books.

But there is one place where I use AI much more heavily: turning something I already created in audio or video into a written article.

The most common example is my podcast blog. For SEO and accessibility, I like each podcast episode to have an article version of the conversation—something more readable than a raw transcript, but still faithful to what was actually said.

In that situation, I may give AI the full transcript and essentially say:

Turn this conversation into a narrated article. Stay true to what was actually said. Do not add new ideas, claims, examples, stories, or conclusions. You can rearrange statements when necessary so they make more sense when read than they did when spoken.

So instead of publishing:

Guest: I started the company because…
Me: That’s interesting. Why?
Guest: Well, because…

AI might turn that into something like:

She told me she started the company because [the reason she actually gave during the conversation]. Later, I asked her about [another topic discussed in the episode], and she explained that…

That’s the kind of transformation I’m comfortable using AI for.

The content already exists. The interview happened between real human beings. The ideas, stories, questions, answers, and opinions came from us. AI is helping me change the format from spoken conversation to readable prose.

Matching my writing style

I also give AI a detailed style guide built from roughly 30 samples of blog posts I wrote myself, by hand.

Those samples help it understand things like my sentence structure, pacing, humor, transitions, vocabulary, and general tone.

At the moment, I’d estimate articles created this way sound about 70% like something I would have written myself. I’m still working on improving that. I’m comfortable being transparent about that.

The goal isn’t to convince you that I personally typed every sentence. The goal is to make sure the article accurately represents a piece of media I actually created, while making it more useful for someone who would rather read than listen or watch.

What I will not do

I will not give AI a topic, have it research or invent an article about that topic, and then publish the result under my name as though I wrote it.

I will not allow it to fabricate quotes, stories, opinions, experiences, or conclusions that weren’t present in the source material. And I will not intentionally make an AI-generated article appear to contain original thoughts from me that I never actually expressed.

For podcast articles in particular, the rule is: AI can change the format. It cannot change the substance.

03

Videos

Right now, I do not use AI to create my videos.

If I eventually use AI to help with scripting, I will follow the same rules I use for book writing: the ideas, substance, stories, examples, and point of view have to come from me. AI may help me organize my thoughts, turn my own notes or voice recordings into a draft, or catch mistakes, but it will not be responsible for deciding what I have to say.

I do not currently use AI-generated video, AI avatars, synthetic performances, or AI-generated versions of myself in my work.

If that changes, I will update this code and clearly disclose it.

04

Illustrations

Ethically, I do not know how to feel about using AI to create illustrations. This is an area where I am still deciding what use of AI I would personally consider acceptable.

I’m an illustrator myself. I’ve spent about 15 years developing that craft, and my company hires human illustrators to create the artwork we publish. Because of that, I take the role of the human artist especially seriously.

For now, if you see an illustration in one of my books or projects, you can assume it was created by a human illustrator unless I clearly state otherwise.

I am still thinking through questions like whether AI could ever have an appropriate place in things such as reference gathering, ideation, editing, or other parts of the illustration process without replacing the actual work of the artist.

In the past, I used to even have qualms about using reference photos when making an illustration! But after art school, and some needed self-criticism, I realized reference only makes art better. My personal rule from then on was, “Whatever makes the illustration better.” Then came AI. Do I carry that thought to its logical conclusion? What would that conclusion be?

Until I have an answer I feel comfortable standing behind, my policy is:

I can use AI sparingly to fix or enhance an illustration, but humans come first.

Example: August 2026

My team and I used AI to fix an illustration mistake where a chicken was missing from a page. The page was illustrated by a human on my team, but she left out a chicken, and she didn’t have time to correct it.

Did we sell our creative soul for a chicken? I hope not, but I’m not sure.

The chicken is the hypno chicken on page 5 of The Knight Who Tried to Fight Every Monster Himself.

From here on, I will update this page for every exception I ever make to my anti-AI illustration logic.

THE PRINCIPLE

Transparent
by design.

Technology will change, and the tools available to creators will change with it. So this code may evolve too.

But the principle I want to protect is much older than AI:

If my name is on something creative, I want it to be a human-made, human-led creation. AI will only be used by me or people I work with to enhance what actually came from a human.

My goal isn’t to pretend I don’t use modern tools. My goal is to be transparent about where the tool is helping and where the human is still the generative mind and even hand behind the work.

More about Timmy