Humans care who created things. Especially art. They especially care when the origin is in question, and more again when the origin might not be human.
AI is yielding tremendous gifts, but it raises questions regarding what we read, see, and hear. How much of the article you just read was written by a human? Did ChatGPT write it? And what about the art for the image? Did the author purchase that from a real artist, or did they make it in Midjourney?
It's not always bad if there was some AI involved. The point is transparency. We'd like to know what we're getting, and where to give the credit.
This is a first attempt at rating creative content for its level of AI authorship. Any creative endeavor applies—from an article to an essay, to a painting to a song.
This rating system works on a scale from 0 to 5.
The levels get read too loosely, so to be precise about where the lines are.
If the text of the piece wasn't touched, it's AIL 0. Art, formatting, frontmatter, and publishing don't move the number. An AI-generated header image on a post you wrote alone is still AIL 0. AIL 1 is where the text got touched but barely: proofreading, a grammar fix, a transcript cleaned up.
AIL 2 is where the AI started adding to the content rather than tidying it.
I went back through everything on this site under those definitions and moved 24 posts, almost all of them down.
The badge next to each level is the mark for that level. AIL is reversed out of a solid panel, and the number sits beside a five-segment rail filled to the level. That rail is what makes it readable at a glance, without a legend and without knowing the system.
The colors run muted sage to dusty brick. I wanted the progression obvious and the judgment absent. A bright green at 0 would read as a gold star, and a bright red at 5 would read as an accusation. Neither is what this measures. A 5 tells you how the thing was made, and that's all it tells you.
We anticipate the following uses and pronunciations.
AIL is pronounced "ALE", as in beer. Or like "ail" in ailment.
Most common:
This essay is at AIL Level 0. 100% grass fed writing!
Or:
The article itself is AIL 1, but all the art for it is AIL 4. Midjourney FTW!
Or:
I now use automation to create my blog articles, so all my content is either AIL 4 or 5!
Where the mark goes is up to you. On this site it sits in the margin next to the tags, and the note at the bottom of each post says the same thing in words. The badge is the glance; the note is the explanation.