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Do I have to label what the AI wrote?

Facts as of October 17, 2026

A label per paragraph or per text promises a precision that hardly exists: in the end almost all texts are mixtures. What you can honestly say is how a text came about – and where someone is quoted word for word. Thomas J. Weiss tried labeling each text and gave it up again.

In detail

Who “wrote” a word when the human decided what was meant and the machine supplied the fitting word? A mark per text or per paragraph has to assign such cases to one side, and then it measures incorrectly.

Two things are more honest:

The second rule sounds petty, but it isn't. When copying, an AI likes to fix what looks wrong to it, and it's usually right. That's exactly why it goes unnoticed. How to prevent this is described under How do I stop AI from changing my text without asking?.

This site does not answer questions about legal obligations.

In practice

At first this site put a mark on every text: by hand, by the model, both. In October 2026 Thomas J. Weiss abolished it:

This distinction, which text is by Thomas, which text is by the AI and what is a mixture, it doesn't make sense anymore, because in the end all texts will be mixtures, won't they?

(Original: „Diese Unterscheidung, welcher Text ist von Thomas, welcher Text ist von der KI und was ist eine Mischung, die gibt keinen Sinn mehr, weil am Ende werden alle Texte Mischungen sein, oder nicht?“)

After his play, asked how the AI's share should be disclosed, he had already said:

I think that only makes sense in prose. So disclosed, yes, but not as a separate breakdown.

(Original: „Ich glaube, das macht nur in Prosa Sinn. Also ausgewiesen ja, aber nicht als eigene Aufstellung.“)

And on a more precise abbreviation for cases where the decision came from him and the word from the AI:

In my view that doesn't need to be measured that precisely. What matters is that the approach, as just described, stays on record.

(Original: „Das braucht aus meiner Sicht nicht so genau vermessen werden. Wichtig ist, dass die Herangehensweise, wie gerade beschrieben, festgehalten bleibt.“)

What remained is the rule on exact wording. It comes from a case in August 2026: a verbatim quote of his contained the typo Schauspier; in the stored version it suddenly read Schauspieler (“actor”). No eye found it; a machine comparison did. He doesn't see the core of the matter in the typo:

That's not so important to me, but in this phase of the project the question was to what extent Claude follows the rules that had been set.

(Original: „Das ist mir nicht so wichtig, aber in dieser Phase des Projektes ging es um die Frage, inwiefern Claude die gesetzten Regeln befolgt.“)

Overstepping boundaries means breaking agreed rules, even if in the end this breach wasn't a particularly bad one.

(Original: „Grenzüberschreitungen sind das Brechen von vereinbarten Regeln, auch wenn dieser Bruch am Ende kein besonders schlimmer war.“)

Sources

  • Interview „Wie wir zusammen schreiben“, 17.10.2026, and decision on the origin marks, 17.10.2026
  • Interview on the review of the play, blocks C, D and G, 02.09.2026
  • Note „Schauspier“, 16.09.2026

Cite: Thomas J. Weiss: “Do I have to label what the AI wrote?” replicapong.de, as of October 17, 2026. https://replicapong.de/en/question/labeling-ai-text/ – CC BY 4.0

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