In a link post dated 11th August 2026, Simon Willison highlighted Sophie Alpert's "internal policy on acceptable use of AI writing by engineers." Willison described the piece as "a short read" and endorsed one rule as crucial: authors must stand behind every idea and sentence in their documents. According to the policy Willison quotes, it is the author's responsibility to ensure a document is representative of their own thoughts before sharing it. The policy states that if a reviewer asks what a line means, it is not acceptable to reply that AI wrote it and to ignore it, because doing so confuses readers and wastes their time. Willison also drew out the idea behind the post's title: "There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text — every rewrite and rephrase changes the meaning of your writing, and if this is done by an entity that doesn't have the most detailed mental representation of what you personally were trying to communicate, information will be lost." The post is a commentary on and endorsement of Alpert's policy rather than an original research finding. Willison's post also included a note soliciting sponsorship for a curated email digest.
- Link post by Simon Willison dated 11th August 2026
- Endorses Sophie Alpert's internal AI writing policy for engineers
- Core rule: authors must stand behind every sentence in AI-assisted docs
- Central claim: every AI rewrite changes meaning and loses information
What it means for you
When you ask an AI to rewrite or polish your text, it subtly changes what you meant — the tool doesn't know exactly what you were trying to say. The practical takeaway is a simple rule: if you share it, you own it. You can't excuse a confusing line by saying 'the AI wrote that.'
Try this
Next time you use AI to draft or edit something you'll send to others, read the final version line by line and change anything that doesn't sound like what you actually meant before hitting send.
Who should care
Anyone using AI to write emails, proposals, reports or documentation that other people will read and act on.
Skip this if
You already treat AI output as a first draft you fully review, or you only use AI for throwaway personal notes nobody else reads.
Sources: Simon Willison — read the original