AI Policy
Last updated: September 21, 2026
Artificial intelligence is now part of how most websites are built and run, and this one is no exception. The Hidden Cause exists to help people find the mental wellbeing, resilience, and wisdom that lie within — and Sydney Banks is very much a part of that. We think you deserve to know exactly where we use these tools, and, just as importantly, where we don’t.
Human hands, always
Everything here is guided by people. AI helps us with the work; it never does the thinking for us, and it never speaks in Syd’s place. The understanding this site points to came from a human being and is passed on, person to person. No tool can stand in for that.
Where we do use it
Used well, AI takes the weight out of slow, careful work so we can spend our time on what matters. On this site that means things like:
- turning Syd’s recordings into transcripts and captions, which a person then checks line by line;
- tidying, formatting, and organising large amounts of material;
- building and maintaining the site itself, and checking it for accessibility and clarity;
- helping us draft and edit our own writing, which we always read, shape, and sign off ourselves.
In every case the tool speeds up the task; a person still decides what is right.
Where we never use it
Some things we will not hand to a machine:
- We never let AI invent, reword, or “improve” the recorded words of Sydney Banks, or of the other teachers we draw on. Their talks and writings are reproduced as they gave them.
- We don’t fabricate quotes, testimonials, people, or experiences.
- We don’t use AI to generate the teaching itself, or to stand in for a real conversation with a real person.
If it touches the heart of the message, a human is behind it.
Does AI understand the Three Principles?
We won’t claim a machine can grasp what these Principles point to; that is a matter of insight, not information. What we can tell you is where its knowledge of this understanding comes from. When AI is used for anything that touches the Three Principles, the source material it draws on is, first and foremost, transcriptions of the talks of Sydney Banks — alongside transcriptions of Keith Blevens, Valda Monroe, and Brett Chitty. It is not left to assemble the understanding from the open internet.
Your privacy
We don’t use your personal details or your private community activity to train AI models. For how we handle your information more generally, please see our Privacy policy.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you would like to know more about how a particular part of the site was made, we are happy to talk. Get in touch.
The tools will keep changing. What stands behind them will not: where it touches the heart of the message, a human is always there.