CBC's Policy on AI
In signing up to the course, you agreed to our code of conduct, confirming that you have not made use of a generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) tool in the creation of your material.
Here is some further guidance on navigating AI when it comes to taking part in our courses.
Our guidance on using AI writing and editing tools
- In addition to our request that writers do not use AI to generate material, we strongly encourage writers to edit and revise their own work, rather than relying on editing tools. We understand that editing tools are becoming increasingly more available and sophisticated, but the ability to edit is one of the most important tools in the writer’s toolkit – it can be where the story is made, and where you develop your own writing style, unique to you.
- We are also keenly aware of the methods of training AI tools, in which hundreds of thousands of writers have had their work ‘scraped’ from pirated copies of their books, without authorisation or recompense to the authors.
- You may choose to use spellchecking tools when proofreading your work and we are happy for students to do that where necessary, but we encourage you to be mindful when using any AI tool that in sharing your work, you may unintentionally be making your work available for scraping/harvesting.
- The same applies when using software to provide a summary or synopsis of your own work. It is also our experience that AI-generated synopses do not effectively capture an author’s story.
- Students should never put a coursemate’s work through any AI editing tools for the purpose of feedback. We understand that the reasoning for this might be as simple as looking to offer a spellcheck, but it is an infringement of the copyright of that writer’s work.
- For the same reason, we also require that CBC’s own material (such as course notes or tasks) is not put into any AI tool.
You can find further advice around AI best practices for authors, as well as more information around how writers’ work has been scraped/harvested in order to train LLMs (large language models), from the Authors Guild.
If you have any questions about this guidance, you can be in touch with us at students@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk.