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Ledger
Ledger is nonpartisan. Ledger does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or parties.
LegalAI Policyv2.0.0
Effective: September 23, 2026View current version

AI Policy

Quick summary

  • Ledger has no AI assistant. There is no chat, no explain feature, and no AI-written answer anywhere on the board.
  • Ledger uses AI in three places, all inside its own review and publishing process: checking proposed polls against Ledger's editorial rules, an advisory screen of stock photographs before a person vets them, and choosing which already-vetted library photograph accompanies a poll.
  • AI never publishes. A Ledger founder reviews and approves every poll and every social post. A model's output is a recommendation to that founder, nothing more.
  • No personal data goes to a model. The models see poll text, library photographs, and the photographs' descriptions, never anything a user entered.
  • The editorial rules are the same for people and models: neutral questions, literal story text, sourced topics, no persuasion.

1. What this policy covers

This policy describes how Ledger uses AI. Ledger is a nonpartisan public board of public-policy polls: each poll is a current policy question tied to a sourced news story, answered with a two-way choice. The polls, their text, their images, and their results are what visitors see. None of it is generated for a visitor on request.

Ledger's AI provider is Anthropic (Claude models). Model versions are pinned and changed only through a reviewed code change.

2. Checking proposed polls

Every proposed poll passes two checks before a founder sees it:

  1. Fixed checks, no AI. The draft must be complete, cite a source from Ledger's vetted list of outlets (or be flagged for a founder's individual review), and concern a current story.
  2. An AI review. A model reads the draft against Ledger's editorial rules — the story text stays literal, the question is a neutral support/oppose on a real, current policy, there is no persuasion framing and no characterization of candidates, parties, or positions — and returns pass, borderline, or fail with a short explanation. If the model cannot complete its review, the result is recorded as an error, never as a pass or a fail.

The founder sees the model's verdict and explanation beside the draft, then decides. Only a founder's approval publishes a poll. A poll never goes live because a model passed it.

Drafting polls is switched off. Ledger's code contains a feature that drafts candidate poll questions from news feeds with an AI model. It is switched off in production. If Ledger turns it on, a new version of this AI Policy will say so first, and every drafted poll will still pass the checks above and a founder's publish decision.

3. Stock photographs

A poll may carry one photograph from Ledger's stock library. When a photograph is added to the library, a model checks it against Ledger's rule for poll imagery — symbolic or topical only, never a real person or a specific real event as the subject — and writes one plain sentence describing what it shows. The check is advisory: a person vets every photograph before it can be attached to a poll. If the model is unavailable, the photograph waits for that person's review like any other. Ledger does not use AI to generate images.

When a proposed poll reaches founder review, a model chooses which photograph from the library accompanies it. The model sees the poll's text and the one-line descriptions of the photographs it can choose from, and a person has already vetted every one of those photographs. The model never adds a photograph to the library.

4. What AI does not do on Ledger

  • Answer questions from visitors. There is no assistant, chat, or explain feature.
  • Publish polls or social posts. Founders do.
  • Decide what counts as neutral on its own. It may flag; a founder decides.
  • See personal data. No email, name, answer, reaction, or IP address is ever sent to a model.
  • Train on your data. Ledger does not use your answers or reactions to train any model, and Anthropic's API terms apply to the drafts and images Ledger sends.
  • Choose which results you see or in what order. Result ordering on the board is mechanical — by response count and by 24-hour change — and is never set by a model.

5. Versioning and review

This document is versioned. Ledger publishes only the current version; the version history is summarized at /legal, and the full text of any earlier version is available on request to the support address on the contact page. Revisions happen when the rules for Ledger's AI use change. Routine wording cleanups do not trigger a version change.

6. Effective date and version

  • Version: v2.0.0
  • Effective date: September 23, 2026
  • Prior versions: v1.2.0, v1.1.0, v1.0.0.

What changed in v2.0.0. Ledger's AI assistant, Vera, its chat and explain features, and the abuse-handling rules that governed them are gone. This version describes Ledger's remaining AI use: checking proposed polls, screening stock photographs, and choosing which vetted photograph accompanies a poll, all inside a review process where a person makes every publishing decision. It also discloses a news-drafting feature that is switched off.