How we use AI

We use AI. We also use our heads.

Futureproof would be a ridiculous place to pretend the machines are not in the room. We use them to research, draft, design, code, test, and answer festival questions. We do not hand them the steering wheel, the guest list, or the final word.

Last updated
August 22, 2026
Operating rule
People own the consequences
The short version
Machine speed / human responsibility

Use the machines. Keep your name on the decisions.

AI is allowed to be fast, strange, useful, and occasionally brilliant. It is not allowed to become an excuse for fake certainty, borrowed personality, invisible labour, sloppy consent, or nobody being accountable when something lands badly.

Where the machines are in the room

The real version, not the legal-fog version.

The exact vendors will change. The responsibilities do not. These are the current lanes where AI materially helps us make and operate Futureproof.

01
Words and research

A sparring partner, not a ghostwriter with the keys.

We use AI to organize research, test arguments, find gaps, tighten drafts, and get unstuck. The brief, point of view, sources, and final responsibility stay with a person. We do not feed someone else’s work into a model and call the rearranged version ours.

02
Code and operations

Fast hands still need tests.

AI agents help us write code, inspect systems, reconcile records, and automate repetitive work. Their changes go through the same source control, tests, review, privacy boundaries, and deployment gates as human-written changes. Fast is useful. Untraceable is not.

03
Art and graphics

Generated can be expressive. It cannot pretend to be evidence.

We use generative image tools as part of Futureproof’s campaign-art practice. We do not pass synthetic scenes off as documentary photographs, fabricate attendance or participation, or invent a person’s face, quote, endorsement, or presence. Permissioned likenesses and final public assets get human review.

04
FestivalChat

A useful guide, not an oracle or an account desk.

When enabled, FestivalChat uses Anthropic’s API to answer questions from a bounded set of public festival facts. It cannot see registrations, payments, private attendee data, internal speaker holds, or your account. It can still be wrong. Sensitive questions go to a person.

Hard lines

The tools are flexible. These are not.

No confident bullshit.

Names, dates, prices, quotes, credits, partnerships, availability, and claims get checked against a real source. Fluency is not evidence. When we get something wrong, we correct it.

No imaginary humans.

We do not clone a voice, fabricate a likeness, manufacture a testimonial, or place someone at the festival without permission. Stylized speaker art begins with permissioned source material and stays private until a human clears the exact asset.

No private life in a public prompt.

We minimize what a tool receives and do not paste sensitive personal, payment, health, accessibility, credential, contract, or protected roster information into public consumer AI tools. Public-facing AI gets public-safe facts.

No robot gets a vote.

AI does not make the final call on speakers, press accreditation, sponsorship, prices, refunds, accessibility, consent, safety reports, conduct enforcement, publication, or external messages. People own decisions that affect people.

No invisible chatbot.

If you are interacting with an AI system on a Futureproof surface, we say so. We explain its lane, keep a human contact available, and test the boundaries instead of relying on a cheerful disclaimer.

FestivalChat

Ask the robot. Know it is a robot.

When the chat is enabled, the site labels it as an AI assistant. It answers from public-safe festival material and is adversarially tested for private-name leaks, invented claims, prompt fishing, and off-brand or unsafe answers.

What happens to a chat message

Your message and the recent conversation are sent to Anthropic's commercial API to generate an answer. Futureproof's site does not write chat transcripts to its own database. Do not put payment, health, accessibility, confidential, or other sensitive information in the chat.

Anthropic says commercial API inputs and outputs are not used for model training by default and are normally deleted from its backend within 30 days, with published exceptions for abuse monitoring, legal obligations, feedback, and different contractual settings.

Borrowed brains, visible sources

This did not spring fully formed from a prompt box.

Lara Kroeker's policy gave us the shove to write this plainly. The other sources helped pressure-test the parts about accountability, privacy, verification, disclosure, creator rights, and ongoing evaluation. We borrowed the questions, not their sentences or institutional posture.

Questions, corrections, arguments?

Good. This is a living operating policy, not a marble tablet. If something here is unclear, untrue, or not good enough, email hello@bc-ai.ca. We would rather answer a sharp question than hide behind a soft paragraph.

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