Your code of conduct

This is the last lesson of the Explorer track.

Sixty-three lessons have given you capability and a lot of individual judgements. This one collects the judgements into something you can actually consult — because the moment you need them, you will be busy, under pressure, and wanting a particular answer.

Why in advance

You will not reason well about this in the moment. Nobody does.

At the point of decision there is a deadline, someone waiting, and a strong preference for the convenient answer — the exact conditions E7·L7 described, where you scrutinise what you dislike and wave through what suits you.

A code written calmly is you, deciding, at your best. Consulting it later is not outsourcing the judgement; it is honouring one you already made under better conditions.

Eight questions

Answer these. Specifically, in your own words.

1. What will I always disclose? (E8·L2) Which work, to whom, in what words.

2. What will I never paste? (E4·L8) The categories, plus what you do instead when the task is real but the material is sensitive.

3. What decisions stay mine? (E4·L8, E8·L4) Where you will not let output decide, particularly about people.

4. What do I always verify? (E7·L8) Your three standing rules — at minimum, never repeat an unopened citation.

5. What will I not generate? (E6·L8) The likeness rules, the four categories, your line on real people.

6. Whose work does mine affect, and how will I involve them? (E8·L6)

7. What will I refuse, whoever asks? (E8·L7) The floor. The items that do not move when the person asking can make life difficult.

8. When will I review this? A date.

Eight answers. One page. If it runs longer, it is a document you will not consult.

Make it about actions

Values are easy to write and impossible to apply. “I will use AI responsibly” commits you to nothing and settles no argument at three in the afternoon.

Write behaviours instead:

I will not put a citation in anything I publish unless I have opened it.

I will not paste customer data into any assistant, including summaries of it. If I need the analysis, I will strip identifiers first.

I will tell clients when a substantial part of a deliverable was AI-assisted, in one specific sentence.

I will not generate images of real people for anything published.

Each of those tells you what to do in a specific situation. That is the test — if a line cannot settle an actual decision, rewrite it until it can.

Set the review date

Six months. Put it in the calendar now, or it will not happen.

Tools change, norms shift, and your work changes. Some rules will look over-cautious and some will look naive. Both are worth catching, and an unreviewed code has two failure modes: quietly ignored, or obeyed past the point it made sense.

What you have

Across Explorer you have covered what these systems are and are not, the assistants and how to choose, how to brief them, where they fit in a working day, how to produce documents that hold up, how to make and label media, how to verify claims and resist manipulation, and now where your own lines are.

The last one is what makes the rest safe to use. Capability without it is what E7·L8 warned about: a more efficient source of confident errors.

If you are continuing, the Practitioner track builds on all of this. If you are not, you have what you need — and the code you just wrote is the part that keeps mattering.

Try it now (8 minutes)

Answer the eight questions. Not perfectly — writing something you will revise beats planning to write something better.

Then put the review date in your calendar, and tell one person what is in it. Saying it aloud is what turns a document into a commitment.

Check your understanding

1. Why write a personal code in advance rather than deciding case by case?

Cases are too varied to judge individually At the moment of decision you are rushed and want a particular answer Written rules carry legal weight

2. Which line is usable?

"I will use AI responsibly and ethically" "I will not put a citation in anything I publish unless I have opened it" "I will be transparent about my methods"

3. Why does a code need a review date?

To demonstrate compliance Tools and norms change; unreviewed rules get ignored or obeyed past sense Because codes expire after a year

Check answers

Recap

Answer eight questions — disclosure, what you will not paste, which decisions stay yours, what you always verify, what you will not generate, whose work yours affects, what you refuse whoever asks, and when you will review it. Write behaviours rather than values, keep it to a page, and set the date. That completes the Explorer track.