Artificial intelligence can assist with publishing tasks, but it cannot take responsibility for an article. TechByDay’s position is that people must remain accountable for the information, judgments, and creative work published on techbyday.com.
This policy sets boundaries for AI use across our technology news, reviews, guides, images, and contributor submissions. It explains which forms of assistance may be appropriate, which practices are unacceptable, and when readers need to know that AI played a role.
The standard is whether the finished work is accurate, useful, original, and honest about how it was produced.
Human Responsibility
Every article must have a person responsible for its substance. That responsibility includes checking the evidence, understanding the subject, evaluating conclusions, and approving the material for publication.
Using an AI tool does not transfer accountability to the software provider. If a generated passage contains a mistake, the person preparing and reviewing the article remains responsible for identifying and addressing it.
A human review must involve more than reading for fluency. Clear sentences can contain false assumptions, missing qualifications, or conclusions that the available information does not support.
Appropriate Assistance
AI tools may help organize notes, suggest questions, identify passages that need clarification, or compare alternative ways to explain a subject. They may also assist with spelling, grammar, formatting, and repetitive preparation tasks.
These uses should support work that the writer understands and can defend. A suggested explanation should be rejected or revised if the writer cannot establish that it is correct.
Efficiency is useful only when it preserves the quality of the result. Saving preparation time does not justify publishing material that has not received adequate attention.
Research Starts With Evidence
An AI response should not serve as the final authority for a factual claim. Generated summaries can omit important details, combine unrelated information, or present outdated material without a clear warning.
Writers must locate and examine the underlying evidence. This includes checking whether a document exists, whether it says what the tool claims, and whether it applies to the product or event being discussed.
A source suggested by AI is a research lead. It becomes usable support only after someone has assessed its authenticity, relevance, and limitations.
Drafting and Substantive Rewriting
AI-assisted drafting requires greater scrutiny when it shapes an article’s explanations, structure, or conclusions. The writer must assess the result against the assignment rather than treating generated copy as a finished submission.
Substantive passages should be rewritten where necessary to reflect verified findings and the writer’s considered understanding. Empty introductions, unsupported generalizations, and repetitive wording should be removed.
The amount of editing is not the only consideration. A heavily revised article can still be misleading if its central claims originated from unverified generated material.
News Reporting
AI must not invent developments, statements, timelines, or background details to make a news article appear complete. Gaps in reporting should remain identifiable until reliable information fills them.
Automated summaries require particular care during developing stories. They may merge earlier reports with later developments or fail to preserve distinctions between confirmed events and speculation.
Speed does not excuse uncertainty being presented as fact. If a detail cannot be established in time for publication, the article should qualify it or leave it out.
Product Reviews and Personal Experience
Generated language must never create the impression that someone used a product when they did not. Descriptions of comfort, battery behavior, camera handling, sound quality, and reliability must reflect an identifiable basis.
AI cannot supply missing hands-on experience. It may help arrange a reviewer’s notes, but it must not add observations that were absent from those notes.
Likewise, a research-based assessment must remain recognizable as such. Turning specifications into a first-person account would misrepresent both the work performed and the evidence available to readers.
Measurements and Demonstrations
Benchmarks, charts, comparison tables, and performance figures must come from documented information. AI-generated numbers must not be presented as measured results, reasonable estimates, or representative outcomes without a valid basis.
Tools may assist with calculations or data organization, but the inputs, formulas, units, and outputs require checking. A plausible result can still arise from an incorrect assumption.
Demonstrations should also represent actual behavior accurately. A simulated sequence must not be passed off as a recording of a product completing the task.
Technical Instructions and Code
Instructions involving settings, software installation, repairs, or account access need verification appropriate to their consequences. Generated steps may refer to nonexistent menus, outdated commands, or incompatible versions.
Code suggestions should be inspected and tested in a suitable environment before publication where practical. Writers should understand what the code does and identify relevant prerequisites.
If instructions cannot be tested, the article should describe that limitation. AI confidence is not evidence that a procedure will work or that its effects can easily be reversed.
Images, Audio, and Video
AI-generated visuals may be appropriate for clearly illustrative purposes when they do not distort the subject. Their use should be disclosed when readers could reasonably mistake them for documentary material.
Generated images must not serve as evidence of a product, event, defect, interview, or testing result. A realistic appearance does not make an image an authentic record.
Synthetic voices and altered footage require similar care. TechByDay does not accept fabricated endorsements, impersonated statements, or edited media that falsely attributes words or actions to a real person.
Protecting Confidential Information
Writers should consider what information a tool receives before submitting prompts or files. Unpublished interviews, confidential documents, personal details, credentials, and restricted product materials require particular caution.
Access to information for an assignment does not automatically include permission to upload it to another service. Relevant commitments and restrictions must be considered first.
Where approval for such processing is unclear, the material should not be submitted. A convenient workflow is not sufficient reason to expose information beyond its authorized purpose.
Originality and Respect for Other Work
AI use must not become a method for disguising copied reporting or closely reproducing another publication’s expression. Changing vocabulary does not establish an original contribution.
Writers should examine generated passages for suspiciously specific wording, unattributed quotations, and material that may have been reproduced without acknowledgment. Any borrowed contribution needs appropriate treatment.
Requests to imitate a particular living writer’s distinctive voice should be avoided. TechByDay’s content should develop its own clear, professional character rather than depend on an imitation of someone else’s work.
Contributor Disclosure
Contributors should tell the reviewing editor when AI materially assisted with a submission. The explanation should identify the tasks involved, such as drafting passages, translating an interview, producing an illustration, or processing data.
A vague statement that a tool was used may be insufficient when the assistance affects authenticity or evidence. Editors need enough detail to decide what additional review is necessary.
Contributors remain responsible for submissions prepared by assistants, subcontractors, or other collaborators. Undisclosed involvement does not reduce the obligation to explain how the work was produced.
Reader-Facing Disclosure
Readers need disclosure when AI participation meaningfully affects how they should interpret the content. Generated illustrations, synthetic media, and substantial automated production may warrant an explanation near the material.
Routine spelling assistance or minor formatting changes generally do not require an individual notice. The deciding question is whether knowing about the tool would materially change a reasonable reader’s understanding.
Disclosures should describe the actual use plainly. They should neither exaggerate a tool’s contribution nor conceal significant involvement behind broad language about editorial assistance.
Fairness, Accessibility, and Final Review
Generated material can reproduce stereotypes, overlook relevant audiences, or make assumptions about budgets, abilities, and technical knowledge. Review should examine those assumptions alongside factual accuracy.
Accessibility descriptions must correspond to the material they describe. Automatically generated captions and alternative text should be checked for omissions and invented details.
Before publication, the responsible reviewer should assess the complete article, including headlines, tables, captions, and supporting media. Isolated checks are insufficient when the overall presentation remains misleading.
Errors and Policy Changes
AI-related errors should be corrected according to their significance, with an explanation when the problem materially affected the content. Repeated failures may require changes to the tool, workflow, or level of review.
Readers can report concerns through the contact options provided on techbyday.com. Identifying the passage or image helps establish what needs examination.
This policy may evolve as publishing tools change. Any revision should preserve human accountability, reliable evidence, and clear communication about the work readers are being asked to trust.
