What you should never tell an AI

Teens write to an AI the way they write to a friend: names, places, details. The problem is that a chat with an AI is not a private conversation between two people. What you type can be stored on servers and, depending on the service, used to train future models. The rule is simple: a prompt is not a diary.

This stays out of a prompt

• Full name, address or phone number, yours or anyone else's.
• The name of your school, your timetable or your usual routes.
• Passwords, codes or bank details, never and for nothing.
• Photos of other people, especially minors, without their permission.
• Intimate details about friends: their problems, their health and their secrets are not yours to share.

How to ask the same thing, minus the data

• Say 'a friend of mine' or 'someone in my class' instead of the real name.
• Use made-up names and say so in the prompt: 'the names are fictional'.
• Drop or change details that do not matter for the question: the city, the school year, the exact date.

The AI's answer will be just as useful, because it almost never needs to know who is who. And the quick test before hitting send: if you would be uncomfortable with a stranger reading that text, or with it pinned to the school notice board, rewrite it without the details.