AI Transparency on OBSESSED

I, like many of you, received the information yesterday about Substack’s new program with Pangram and the ability for readers to test what has been written by AI, with AI, or without AI.

So, in the spirit of AI transparency, I wanted to walk you guys through my process.

I run two restaurants. Over the course of the last few years, because of the sheer number of restaurants opening in Nashville and rising costs, it has no longer become profitable, and I work for free to run my restaurants and pay my staff. But it still takes up about 40 hours a week of my time. So I have decided to take my lived experience and share it here both as a source of income and a creative outlet for myself.

I have been asked to go from running a company with a marketing department to becoming the marketing department. I had to learn AI in order to get the work done. This may be incredibly unpopular with many of you, but I’m here to be honest. I am now able to run a marketing department that used to cost me $150,000 a year. I am now able to cross-check contracts and build budgets that used to cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers and consultants. It’s amazing.

I have a very healthy relationship with AI. I use it as a CFO and as a CMO in my business, and as a partner to check facts and pull information the same way I would Google when I am writing for you here on this newsletter.

Like I said, AI may help me to get my thoughts into cohesive writing and in a timely manner, as I’ve promised you but A.I. has never made 700,000 gallons of stock or stood over a stock pot. That is me, and my lived experience, and there is no amount of A.I. or A.I. writing that can take that away. That is what I write about here.

None of us are here for the 1500th version of the turkey taco for Wednesday night. There many creators on Substack that will iterate on recipes for a quick weeknight meal. That’s not my jam. I am here to give you a fishing pole, not a fish, and that fishing pole has MANY interpretations.

I think you guys have started to learn that I am not all that interested in claiming ownership over recipes. I used to work in copyright law. You don’t pay for recipes here, your subscription is for my mileage in the kitchen, and my lived experience being share with you. I know that a recipe, as per the Library of Congress, is un copyrightable. I don’t consider myself an author. I consider myself a connector. A person with a tremendous amount of experience that I want share with others. That is what AI helps me and my wild ADHD to do here.

I have a open disclaimer in my About section stating exactly that I use AI to help me collate and form a newsletter based on my lived experiences and combined with pushing back against some of the ideas and norms that other people have on certain things.

I understand the panic for many people who make their living as authors, and I don’t have the answer to that. I felt this morning that it was really important that I spoke to all of you who have trusted me to be here and be honest about the fact that I have and will continue to use A.I. to help me express and collate what I believe to be still very valuable information if you want to cook with me.

My most recent post, A Cook’s Kitchen is available to subscribers to check for AI usage. Try it. Go to the AI scanner, and it will tell you that it was written 100% by AI. That is 100% wholly untrue. So do with that what you will. I hope you’ll stick around and we can continue to learn together.

Best,
Sarah