{
  "id": 616567,
  "title": "There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/11/there-are-no-lossless-transformations-of-natural-language-text",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-11T23:48:35.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Simon Willison",
    "slug": "simon-willison",
    "url": "https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/11/there-are-no-lossless-transformations-of-natural-language-text/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "No natural-language text can be transformed without loss of information. Sophie Alpert has outlined her internal policy regarding the acceptable use of AI writing by engineers. This brief guide aligns with its own advice and is highly beneficial. When employing AI to refine your writing, it is essential to maintain ownership of every idea and sentence in your documents. You must ensure that the entire document accurately reflects your personal thoughts before sharing it. If a reviewer inquires about the meaning behind a particular line, it is unacceptable to respond with, \"Oh, the AI wrote that; just disregard it.\" Presenting content that does not genuinely represent your thoughts will confuse your readers and waste their time. The concept of \"no lossless transformations\" from the article's title is further discussed by Simon Willison, published on August 11th, 2026.",
  "summary": "There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text Sophie Alpert shares her \"internal policy on acceptable use of AI writing by engineers\". It's a short read (supporting its own recommendations) and really good. If you chose to have LLMs help massage your writing the following rule seems crucial to me: You must stand behind every idea and every sentence in your docs . It is your…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}