Choose your number and write it down. It costs nothing, the right to use the mark can never be withdrawn, and there is nobody you need to ask. There is one file on this page — the code — and you only need it if something is going to be printed.
This mark is not a certification and has no legal effect. Where a law requires a disclosure about artificial intelligence, printing this does not discharge that obligation.
[AI 4] — part-written by artificial intelligence.
The mark is text. In a footer, a byline, an email, a metadata field, a document header — you type it and you are finished. No file, no font, no image, and nothing to take from this page.
Six keystrokes: two square brackets, a capital A, a capital I, one space, your number.
The letters are the Authorship Index — the name of this standard — and the digit is the level. Plenty of readers will see AI and think artificial intelligence, which is fair enough and lands them in the right place: the number answers that question either way.
Written out, in the places it usually goes:
[AI 4]on its own, where the scale is already known[AI 4] authorshipindex.org/4with the address, where it may not be<a href="https://authorshipindex.org/4">[AI 4]</a>as a link, on a web pageArtwork earns its place in one situation: something printed, where the mark has to hold a size beside a barcode, or where a reader needs a code to scan. Everywhere else the typed mark is the mark, and it will outlive any file on this page.
The only thing on this page you cannot type, and so the only thing offered as a file. It encodes one address — https://authorshipindex.org/4 — and nothing else. No identifier, no parameters, nothing about your work and nothing about whoever scans it.
Version 3, 29 × 29 modules, error correction Q — about 30% damage tolerated, so it survives a scuffed cover. There are only ever eleven codes; take the one matching your number and reuse it forever.
Ways the mark is set, drawn at print size. These are examples rather than assets: every one is type, and you can set it yourself in whatever face your work already uses. Only the code above is a file.
Print may want the code. Everything else wants six keystrokes and a link.
Back cover beside the barcode, plus the copyright page. Add [AI 4] to your metadata — that's where cataloguers and retail feeds look.
Title page or colophon, wherever the document already states its author and date.
Title page, beside the draft date. The index describes the script, not the performance.
No artwork needed. Write [AI 4] in the footer or byline and link it to authorshipindex.org/4. That's the whole implementation — the text is the mark.
In the description, marking the script. Say so explicitly: "Script: [AI 4]."
The code in the artwork above is real and scannable. It encodes one address and nothing else:
https://authorshipindex.org/4
No identifier, no parameters, no tracking. Version 3, 29 × 29 modules, error correction Q — which tolerates about 30% damage, so it survives a scuffed cover.
Nothing about your work is encoded, because nothing about your work is held anywhere. There are only ever eleven codes in the entire system — /0 through /9 and /x — and they never change. Take the one matching your number and reuse it.
Print it at the size you intend to use, on the stock you intend to use, and scan it with an ordinary phone in ordinary light. Matte and uncoated papers absorb ink and thicken modules; a code that scans perfectly on a screen can fail on paper. 18 mm is the sensible floor.
The blank margin around the code is part of it — four modules on every side, already built into the artwork. Cropping it, or letting cover art run up against the edge, is the most common reason a printed code stops working.
Download it and put it on your own server. This site deliberately does not offer an image address to link to, and the reason is worth knowing before you go looking for one.
A linked image is a request to whoever hosts it. Every visitor to every page carrying the mark would be reaching this site, and its host would see them. That is a stream of readers we have promised not to gather, created on other people's pages without their readers knowing.
If this site were slow, moved, or went dark, the mark would vanish from your work. A file you hold cannot be taken away, changed underneath you, or switched off.
Write [AI 4] in the byline or footer and link the text to authorshipindex.org/4. Six keystrokes, no file to host, nothing to break. The artwork exists for print, where text alone will not do.
In many sans-serif faces the capital I is a bare vertical stroke, near-identical to a figure 1 — so [AI 4] can read as [A1 4]. A1 is a common idiom for first-rate, and this index grades nothing, so that is the one misreading worth designing against.
We advise a face whose capital I is unmistakable. Most serif faces carry crossbars top and bottom by construction; some sans faces add them deliberately. Set it and look at it small.
This is advice, not a rule. The standard rules on what the mark means and advises on how it is set.
Keep clear space on all four sides equal to the height of the digit. Print in a single ink — black on white, or the cover's own ink on its own ground. Set it in the cover's own typeface if you prefer — the number is the mark, not the font.
Never colour-code the scale green to red — the moment the mark carries a verdict, the standard has broken its own promise. Never add "only", "just", or "certified human" beside the number. The digit is the whole statement.
Put the number on the copyright page and in your work's metadata as [AI 4]. That's where librarians, cataloguers and retail feeds will look, and it costs nothing.
Say how, not just what. The digit alone carries little credibility — a sentence in your acknowledgements explaining how artificial intelligence was involved carries a great deal. That note is yours, lives wherever you put it, and this standard can never lose it.
The idea, the decisions and the editing are the author's. The sentences are largely the machine's. A standard that would not declare itself would not be worth much.
The Authorship Index | Standard version 2026 | authorshipindex.org | JSON