After a lot of testing, thought and research, including asking ChatGPT about its own role in shaping society, I've decided to actively restrict my use of AI in my research and writing. This is tricky, since I'll need to convince my browsers, devices and so on to stop automatically using AI. I think that for me, this will reduce distractions and allow me write in the way I always have.
I will continue to allow Word to check my spelling with its squiggly red lines, but not to make or suggest changes to my text. Starting on January 1st, 2026, I do not use any of the following AI services, unless specifically stated:
- Grammar checking services (I am my own grammar nerd)
Pic by @_ren.photos
No AI needed - Online research or search (I believe Firefox is working on an opt-in for this)
- Transcription of audio interviews
- Summaries of materials for research purposes
- Brainstorming partner
- Suggestions for titles and headings
- Generate outlines
- Generate first drafts for further editing
- Assess reading level (I generally hand my document to a child, if I want to check age appropriateness, and I always find this most useful and informative)
- Evaluate and find errors and inconsistencies in text drafts (I've also got lovely willing adults on hand to do this check for me!)
- Generate or clean up citations (although I would have loved this during my master's dissertation!)
- Generate or clean up formatting
- Upload project content to projects or repositories
- Analyse numerical data
- Generate drafts of graphics
- Generate final graphics for publication
- Generate audio narration
- Generate synthetic video
- Generate synthetic images
I realise I'm incredibly fortunate to have had an excellent educational foundation, to be naturally creative, and to have children and adults of all ages around me who are happy to read things and point out any holes and errors. Not everyone is so lucky. It will be interesting to see what wonderful things are created with the help of AI, and how the whole situation develops.
You can see a good example of an online AI disclosure form here, which I've used to help me create the above list.
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