Our stance on AI

Our team has worked with AI for some time and from this we've developed an understanding that is a little at variance to what you might be hearing in popular media.

At its base "AI" is a very broad term - almost to the point of being meaningless and refers to very many tools and tactics used in modern software. For this reason, we will not be actively promoting the term "AI" when talking about our product. We'll prefer to tell you more directly what Tidepools is actually doing for you and what tools it is using to do so.

Tidepools will use Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to help your create new ideas faster. It's very important to us that you understand at a basic level what this means.

Firstly, we do not use your data to train a model. The Generative AI will not get in any way "smarter" by using your ideas and interacting with the information you put in Tidepools. As an analogy you can imagine our AI as a superbly sharp knife that you are using to prepare food. A great knife will help you prepare food quickly and in a way that is a joy to use. Once done, the knife has no knowledge or understanding of what it helped make. That is very similar to how we use AI - it will help you prepare your ideas, but it will not remember anything or learn from that experience.

Secondly, an important (and somewhat philosophical) point: we do not believe that AI tools (in their current generations, architecture and form) are creative. Many people have built application that simulate creativity, or can generate very realistic visual works, musical works and text. These are hugely impressive. The way that "AI" does this though is inherently very different to how humans create. We at Tidepools believe that this difference is fundamental and meaningful. Over time we think this difference will become clearer and we think this difference will open up new modes for human expression.

This belief is foundational to our desire to create the Tidepools App.

Principles of how we view you and your data

Data or text you enter into the Tidepools App is YOUR DATA. We consider this your property. Respect of your data is a core value of Tidepools. We are an ideas platform and we have designed the platform to facilitate idea creation and idea sharing. Then decision of how and when to share ideas, or what those ideas are, we believe is in the hands of its creator - that means you. This is a concept that we hold very dear and we will always make that our guiding objective when developing the software forward.

What will we NOT do with your data?

We will not read your data. We will not manipulate or change your data except within the parameters of how the software is designed to function. We exercise no rights of ownership over your data.

We do not and will not police your usage of the platform.

We will not scan or censor your data.

You should be aware that there is an intense debate in legislatures around the world as to how software like Tidepools should patrol the use of software. That scrutiny is augmented in the context of AI. We believe this is a healthy and complex debate and the shape of legislation is still being determined. We are hopeful that legislators will arrive at solutions that will help society move forward and protect personal rights. We will stay abreast of these developments and update you as they impact our commitments as laid out above.

What will we try and do based on your interactions with Tidepools?

We will always try and improve Tidepools.

To do this we will be looking for use case indicators, evidence that users are finding things difficult to do, evidence that the platform is not performing well and evidence of commonality across the base that can give us ideas of what to improve on the service.

Tidepools is OUR idea. We will be viewing all things through the lense of how can we make OUR idea better.

Base metric data like - usage frequency, use of features etc. are very important to us to make these decisions.

None of our interest or focus when we look at usage data will ever cause us to breach our commitment to the privacy of your data as stated above.

Our stance on biometrics, personal preferences and AI

Biometrics such as age, gender and other personal preferences - like shopping preferences etc. is a rich data feeding ground for AI applications.

It is of little doubt that there may be a ton of benefit of mining this data for e.g. medical applications.

Any application like that could wind up being either 1) very spooky or 2) highly ethically concerning. There is a lot of public and legislative debate on how such data should be used and controlled.

Luckily for Tidepools we see no benefit to using any such biometric data in determining how we build our software. Idea generation in our view sits above any consideration of biometrics. So regardless of laws and public debate we will not be using any such data in determining how our use of AI (etc.) works on our platform.

Compliance with laws

All of the above notwithstanding, we will always comply with the laws of the jurisdictions in which we operate.

Each country and jurisdiction has different laws regarding data protection, data governance and the rights of authorities regarding data. We will comply at all times with the law and we will have legal council to advise us on how we best comply with these laws

If it comes to a point where a jurisdiction or law goes against our principles or forces us to police or sensor your data, we may have to withdraw our services from that jurisdiction. That will be a sad day for us and we certainly neither hope nor expect it to be common.

Our ask of you

Don't be a troll.

That's pretty much it.

It is an unfortunate and concerning truth that our commitment to privacy may create an avenue for our service to be used in a manner that is illegal. If we become aware that you are using the platform for an illegal purpose, we will fully comply with our obligations under the law. We feel that this is pretty clear and we don't think it should be controversial.

Trolling is a little bit more murky of a subject. We are all humans. Humans don't agree. We see this as a feature of being human, not a bug. You will state things on this platform that we don't agree with and others don't agree with. That is completely fine and we love healthy debate and innovative outlooks and ideas.

All that said, you can, in this life, opt to be a bridge builder and be excited to share great ideas that move use forward as a species and as a society - or you can decide to be subversive and live under bridges as a troll.

We think bridge builders are cool.

We think trolls are not cool.

We ask you to be cool - we can't force you to be and we won't police you either way.

Have concerns? Reach out!

Overall, we will continually look to add safeguards to safeguard your data. Over time as we invest more in the platform we will discover new and better ways to secure and protect your data. Data protection is a complex field and new exploits emerge continually. As we become aware of these we will prioritize protection and elimination of exploits. This is a problem that exists in all software applications. You have our commitment to give this top priority as a foundational component our application development. You also have our commitment to transparency if we become aware of any issue in our software.

If you have questions or concerns about your data, or if you need our intervention to backup or secure your data for any reason, or if you wish to exercise your right to be forgotten in our systems - please send and email to: dataprivacy@tidepoolssoftware.com