Is it safe to paste my manuscript into an AI chat?
- Policies differ by provider, by plan, and by consumer versus business accounts.
- Some providers use consumer conversations to improve models by default.
- Settings that opt out of training often exist but are rarely on by default.
- Pasting does not affect your copyright — you still own what you wrote.
- Policies change; a decision made last year may not hold today.
It depends on the provider and your account type, and it is worth checking directly rather than assuming. Some providers use consumer conversations to improve their models unless you opt out; business and API tiers usually do not. Your copyright is unaffected either way. What changes is who else may see or learn from the text.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Unpublished manuscripts are the one asset a writer cannot replace, and publishing contracts increasingly ask questions about how a book was produced. Knowing your tool’s policy is not paranoia; it is the same diligence you would apply before emailing the book to a stranger.
Chapter ii·What to include
- The provider’s current data and training policy, read on their site, not summarised.
- Whether your specific plan differs from the consumer default.
- The opt-out setting, if one exists, and whether you have actually enabled it.
- Retention: how long conversations are kept and whether you can delete them.
- Whether the tool states plainly that it does not train on your work.
Chapter iii·Example
A debut novelist finds the training toggle in her account settings, switches it off, and keeps working. Her co-author on the same book never checks, and their manuscript sits under two different policies without either of them realising.
In WriteLoom
Everything this article talks about, in one project
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