About AI Used

What the link can tell you

A disclosure should tell a reader what happened without pretending to verify it. AI Used gives people a shared list of statements and a compact way to link to the ones they select.

Choose what happened

For an image extended using generative outpainting and then edited and fully reviewed by a person, choose 27, 94 and 95. That becomes aiused.org/1/Y_3. An application merely having AI tools is different: category 89 means AI-capable software with no known AI use.

Place the link beside the image, article, software, recording or clearly identified portion it describes. The same combination produces the same link for everyone. The link does not record a particular creator, project or date.

How the code is made

The first URL segment, 1, selects vocabulary version 1. The second segment encodes the set of category numbers as an integer. Sets are ordered first by how many categories they contain, then by their combinatorial rank. The integer uses a 64-character, case-sensitive alphabet.

R = Σ C(99, j), j = 0…k−1
  + Σ C(aᵢ−1, i), i = 1…k

alphabet =
0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz-_

Here, the selected IDs aᵢ are sorted, k is the number selected, and C(n,k) is the binomial coefficient. Each of the 2⁹⁹ possible sets has exactly one code. Up to three selections fit in at most three payload characters; five fit in five. Every possible set fits in 17 payload characters. Version tokens use the same URL-safe alphabet: one character first, then two, three, or four as needed. Four or six characters cannot represent every possible combination of 99 choices.

Download the JavaScript encoder and decoder ↗. Codes preserve capitalization, underscores and hyphens. No secret, hash collision, account or server-side combination record is involved.

Old links keep their meaning

The v1 meanings and numbering will not be reassigned. New definitions require a new vocabulary version. Save the full vocabulary, citation JSON and decoder to interpret a code independently of this website.

QR codes for print

Every combination has a QR containing its full versioned HTTPS citation URL. Downloads are black-and-white SVGs with the required four-module white border. Standard error correction is M; the QR uses the smallest version that fits the URL in byte mode. A common short code is a 25 × 25 module symbol, or 33 × 33 including its border.

Try 12 mm first; 10 mm is available for very small placements. Keep the border, avoid logos and stretching, and print on a plain background. Test the actual print with the phones and materials you expect people to use. Digital decoding tests do not guarantee a physical scan. DENSO’s QR sizing guide ↗

What a disclosure does not prove

It is a creator’s self-declaration, not a provenance certificate, independent audit, authorship claim, AI detector or legal standard. Unselected statements are unclaimed, not denied. The empty code 1/0 makes no declarations. Conflicting review statuses are flagged so the creator can clarify their scope.

Privacy and reuse

The picker runs in your browser. When you preview or download a QR, its public code is sent to the site to render it. No account or cookies are required. Cloudflare records aggregate request type, method, status and timing; custom analytics events omit disclosure codes and visitor identifiers. Operational logs may still include requested URLs. Put no private information in a URL. You may copy and reuse the vocabulary and citations with attribution to AI Used and the vocabulary version.