While current and future Artificial Intelligence processing may be seen as a further progression from spell check, grammar check, etc., it crosses a line when it moves from analysis to generation. Noble Pen policy is that AI and other computer tools may be used for analysis, but not for generation that is substituted for creativity and expression in an author’s voice.

1. AI assisted research, such as automatically provided by search engines, is a good place to start but may fabricate results and like Wikipedia may contain honest errors, so thus needs to be checked with more authoritative sources. Research must not be copied verbatim from any source without credit.

2. Authors must consider that submitting material to on-line tools may release it into public domain, i.e. loss of copyright, with the risk that their own new ideas may appear in other works.

3. Analysis tools, which have progressed from spell checking, to grammar checking, to analysis of sentence structure, repetitions, passive vs active, and future capabilities, may provide a reminder of editing possibilities, as long as the author remains in creative control. Analysis tool output may not be used in submissions to the extent that it changes the author’s voice and style.

4. Output of a tool that generates text, images, or plot from prompts may not be placed in submissions as it leaves minimum control with the “author” and is not copyrightable. It is tapping into the hive mind of similar work by others, and in fact may be directly plagiarized from someone else’s work. Even after paraphrasing it is not the author’s work.

5. Critiques of other authors’ works must follow the same rules as author submissions. Members may not submit the works of others to on-line tools without permission.