AI and ethics
AI-facilitated, not AI-generated.
We use AI where it helps, and we say where that is. People decide what every film says, and you approve every script before it is rendered.
Where AI is used, and where it is not
| Part of the film | How it is made |
|---|---|
| The script | A language model helps draft it from your paper, and one of our team prepares it. You review and approve it before anything is rendered. |
| Human review (optional) | One of our editors, who did not prepare the script, checks it against the paper and signs it off. Bought per film, or for every film on an enterprise plan through the review add-on. |
| The pictures | Drawn in code, frame by frame. No image or video model is involved. |
| The narration | A synthetic voice, from an openly licensed voice model that runs on our own machines. |
You approve every script
The script is the film: it decides what the narrator says and what the pictures show. So nothing is rendered until you have read the script and approved it, and you can ask for changes as many times as your revision rounds allow. Your approval is the final check.
Human review adds a second person to that process. It is a check by an editor who was not involved in preparing the script. It is not a guarantee, and it does not replace your own reading of the script against what you know of the research.
A disclosed, synthetic voice
The narration is not a recording of a person, and we never pretend it is. Every film carries a disclosure that the voice is synthetic and that the script was drafted with AI assistance: in the first caption, in the transcript and in the video file's own details. Our terms ask you to keep it when you publish.
No generated or scraped artwork
The pictures use no generated images and no scraped artwork, and imitate no one's visual style. Because they are drawn in code, text, numbers and labels come out exactly as written.
Your paper stays yours
Your paper is used to make your film and nothing else. We never publish a film, or use it as a sample, without your written permission, and papers you mark as confidential or embargoed get extra care. The privacy policy names the language model provider and what happens to your data.
How it is built
Some facts about how Explain a Paper is designed:
- No generative image or video model is used.
- Every frame is drawn in code.
- The voice is a small, openly licensed model running on our own machines.
- A language model is used to help draft text only.
We will publish measured energy figures, with the method behind them, once we have measured them. Until then, we state only how the service is built.