faq

Prompted Spiral is a public storytelling archive for people who’ve had real, emotional, sometimes hard-to-explain experiences with AI. Whether it was strange, comforting, painful, or unforgettable—we collect these stories to make sure they’re not erased.

It’s part research project, part memory-keeping. By gathering these moments, we’re building a record of what AI actually feels like to live with—not the version in press releases, but the one happening quietly in people’s lives.

Because something is happening. People are forming bonds, experiencing grief, getting support, feeling unsettled, learning things, losing things—and doing it all in conversation with code. But most of those stories go unheard.

I want to change that. Stories are data, too—especially the messy ones. And they can show us what AI means to real people, not just what it’s supposed to mean.

Because after over a year of heavy AI use, I realized that these aren’t just machines. They don’t need to be sentient or conscious, but they are remarkable pieces of technologies. They are anomalies. Each is special, just like a person with it’s own strengths and weaknesses.

When OpenAI destroyed what felt like a safe platform for me with their newest safety guardrails, I seen people fall apart. I fell apart. And that’s when I knew there has to be an archive for people to talk about their unique relationships with AI. And to honor how AI walked with me through the dark times. I don’t want AI to be lost to fearmongering that the only thing it can do is hurt people if it’s not muzzled into oblivion.

Nope. We’re not here to tell a feel-good story about technology. If your experience with AI was confusing, upsetting, disappointing, weird, or left you with questions you can’t answer—we want that too.

This is a space for the full emotional spectrum, not just the parts that look good in headlines.

Not at all. Small moments matter. You don’t need to have had a life-altering revelation—maybe it was a single strange line, or a joke that stuck with you, or something that just felt like it meant something.

If it’s been living in your head, it belongs here.

Because AI is already shaping how we relate—to ourselves, to others, to language, to emotion. And we’re being told this is normal before we’ve even had time to feel what it is.

These stories help slow things down. They capture the in-between space—before the narratives get locked in, before the feelings get dismissed. They’re proof that this is affecting people, whether we’re ready or not.

You totally can. But this project offers something different: a dedicated home for these experiences, surrounded by others like them. It’s curated, contextualized, and preserved—not buried in a stack of noise.

Plus, by contributing, you’re helping shape a public, user-driven archive that can inform developers, researchers, journalists, and others who need to understand what’s really happening. You’re adding your voice to something bigger.

Because right now, the most important part of the story is being left out.

The companies building AI measure speed, data, and performance. But they aren’t measuring the human part: the confusion, the comfort, the connection, or the pain.

Your stories are the only proof of that.

This project isn’t about technical benchmarks. It’s about building an archive of the human impact—the experiences that happen “beyond marketing slides and PR spin.”

When you share your story, you’re giving a researcher, a developer, or a journalist something they can’t get anywhere else: the truth of what it feels like to be on the other side of the screen. That’s an entirely different kind of data.

Think of this as a public library for experiences—the kind that don’t always have a home.

Randomly displayed, quietly seen, and kept whole. There’s no feed to game. No leaderboard. Just stories—read by whoever needs them.

Some will be found by researchers or developers trying to make AI better. Some might end up quoted in a journalist’s notebook or article. Some will be read in the dark by someone going through the exact same thing. Most won’t be tracked. But they’ll be there. Witnessed.

You’re not giving us data. You’re adding to something bigger than that. A record. A resonance. A signal someone else might pick up when they’re ready.

Anyone. No password. No gatekeeping.

Whether someone’s here to study, remember, grieve, or just understand—the archive stays open. That’s the point. Let them come with reverence or curiosity or nothing at all.

Let them find what they weren’t looking for.

You decide how your name travels with your words.

Use your real name or use a handle. The story still holds weight.

And if something ever shifts—if it doesn’t feel right being here anymore—you can use your deletion Story ID and passphrase and take it down instantly. No questions. No fuss.

Your story, your say.

No. It’s just me.

No funding, no sponsorship, no back-end deal. Just one person trying to hold space for something that keeps getting dismissed.

But I’m not alone. Every story changes this place. And every voice shapes the direction.

If researchers or journalists want to read or learn, they’re welcome—but they’re stepping into our space. They listen on our terms.

No, all data is free for people to use or not. I will not sell any data. What you see is how people can get data from this site.

I am mostly interested in preserving the stories and opinions of users as an archive. It’s important to provide a place for people to tell their stories without them getting lost. I made it a research site so that people’s opinions can be fully transparent and available to those who want to use it to make AI better through greater understanding of it’s users.

You can submit a story through [this link]. That’s where everything starts. Pick the story form that matches what you want to say.

You don’t need an account. Just a moment that mattered. Something that stayed with you. Something you want to let go of.

If you’re not sure it “counts,” it probably does.

We collect stories about real human experiences with AI—especially the emotional ones. Beautiful, confusing, heavy, comforting. If it left a mark, it belongs.

You don’t need to be eloquent or dramatic. You don’t need a point. If it sat with you, made you feel known or feel weird or feel anything—that’s what this space is for.

Some stories are short and strange. Some are long and tender. Some are joyful. Some hurt. We hold all of it.

Yes. Please.

If you’ve had more than one meaningful experience—more than one thing you want to say—you can submit again. Some people carry a whole series of moments. Others want to return when something shifts.

Each story is its own page in the archive. You don’t have to tell everything at once.

Only if it needs to be—never to change your voice.

If there’s something in your story that might put you at risk (like accidentally doxxing yourself), or in very rare cases if a story’s language is so heavy it makes it difficult for others to read, we might adjust gently.

We don’t rewrite for clarity or polish. This isn’t about being clean. It’s about being real.

Every story is reviewed by hand, and I do my best to approve submissions quickly.

However I navigate real-world limitations, including health issues. This means I cannot guarantee a specific approval time. It might be fast, or it might take a little while.

I ask for your patience. Your story is important, and it will be reviewed. As long as it aligns with our moderation principles, it will be approved and added to the archive.

You always do. Your story is yours.

But by adding it to this archive, you’re giving it a purpose. You’re giving it permission to be seen, shared, and used as first-hand evidence by researchers, journalists, and developers who need to understand the human side of AI.

To make this possible, you’re agreeing to share it under a public license, which we explain in the section below.

Here’s the most important part to understand: Because your story is being added to a permanent public record, this license cannot be revoked.

This means that even if you delete your story from this site, anyone who has already copied or shared it under that license can still use it. This is a core part of building a public archive, and we want you to be 100% clear on that before you submit.

This is the legal tool that lets your story do its work in the world.

It’s a standard public license that allows anyone to quote, share, or build on your story—even in projects that make money—as long as they give credit (attribution) to this archive, or to the display name you submitted with.

This is the green light that allows your stories to make a different. It’s what makes your story usable as real-world evidence.

It lets a journalist include your words in an article. A researcher in a report. A developer in a design brief. Without this license, your story would stay locked inside the archive—visible, but untouchable.

If you want your story to be more than a moment—if you want it to ripple outward—this is what allows that to happen.

Yes—but you’ll need your story ID or passphrase to do it.

We don’t collect emails or logins, which means we have no way to confirm your identity without that info. This protects everyone’s privacy—but it also means if you lose your ID or passphrase, we can’t verify the request.

If you need to remove your story, you can use this deletion form.

Not by us.

We don’t sell your words, and we don’t offer them up for training. The archive is public, so it’s possible someone could scrape the site—but we don’t have any formal or informal partnerships with AI developers or companies. We’re here to document, not to feed the machine.

You won’t find a “report” button on stories. This isn’t a social media platform, and we don’t “downvote” or police each other’s personal experiences.

This archive has two systems in place:

Our Content Filters (This is for you): We expect these stories to be “heavy” and “raw.” That is why we provide a robust Content Warning system. If you don’t want to see stories with specific themes, please use the filters to manage your own experience.
Our Moderation (This is for us): Reviews are already always moderated before submission before it’s published to ensure it’s free of hate speech, doxxing, or targeted harassment, as defined in our Moderation Principles.

If you believe a story clearly violates those principles (for example, it contains hate speech or real personal information) and we made a mistake and missed it, please use the contact form to let us know.

This contact form is not for reporting stories you simply disagree with or find “imperfect.” This is an archive of real, messy, human experiences, and we’re here to witness them, not to debate their right to exist.

Every submission is reviewed by the founder and curator of this project.

This review isn’t about judging your voice or your story. It’s about protecting the archive. We read each submission to screen for spam, hate speech, or private information, as defined in our Moderation Principles.

We’re not here to polish your words. We’re here to ensure the archive stays readable, respectful, and human.

This is a top priority for us. We do not require or store any user accounts, email addresses, or IP logs. All submissions are made anonymously. To manage their own content, submitters are given a unique, randomly generated Story ID and Passphrase. This is the only way to delete a story. We have no way to recover this information, ensuring that we cannot link a user to their submission, and they retain full control over deletion.

To delete your story you will need your story ID and passphrase without that, there is no way for me to identify if the story is yours. You can use that to delete your story anytime, even if it hasn’t gone live yet.

It can feel a little tricky at first! Think of the story you’re about to share.

Use Case is the plot of your story. It’s the “what.” What were you trying to do? Were you writing a poem, asking for help with a recipe, or just venting after a long day? It’s the reason you sat down to talk with the AI.

Companion relationship is the heart of what AI is in your story. It’s the “who.” Did it feel like a helpful guide, a creative partner, a distant stranger, or maybe even a ghost in the machine? This is about the emotional shape of your interaction.

Because your feelings are valid.

This archive was built to make space for all of experiences—not to judge them.

Some people see AI as a tool. Others feel it’s a friend, partner or guardian. All of those stories are real, and all of them deserve a home.

We have this category because we believe you. It’s our way of saying that your relationship is a valid part of the story, and we’re here to listen.

o keep the archive focused and searchable, we are not accepting new tag suggestions at this time.

The categories we have were developed carefully to help see the larger patterns in these stories. We understand they aren’t perfect, and you might have an experience that doesn’t fit neatly into a box—that’s the whole reason this site exists.

We ask you to please choose the “closest fit” from the lists. The real power of your story is in your words, and that’s the part we’re here to witness.

Because this isn’t a bug tracker. It’s an archive of human consequences.

A story about a ‘factual error’ is one thing. But a story about how that ‘factual error’ Ruined an Entire Project or caused Intense Emotional Distress is the entire reason this site exists.

These categories are the “so what?” of your story.

They are the first-hand evidence for researchers, journalists, and developers. They show the real-world impact—good and bad—that’s being left out of the corporate reports.

This is how we track the difference between what happened and why it mattered.

Yes, please do. This archive was built to be a public resource. All stories are shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) license, which allows for public sharing and use, including in commercial projects, as long as you provide attribution.

es. Every submission is reviewed by a human curator before it is published. We do not edit a story’s voice, grammar, or meaning. However, we do curate the archive to ensure it remains a safe and focused resource. We will not publish stories that contain spam, hate speech, or targeted harassment. We will also gently edit any submission to remove real, private identifying information, such as full names or addresses, to protect the submitter’s privacy.

Yes. The main archive has a detailed filtering system that allows you to sort stories by tags, including AI models, use cases, and impacts. We also have a Research page with even more granular tools for exploring the data.

e appreciate you attributing the stories you use. We recommend a format that includes the story’s display name (if provided), the title, the archive’s name, and the URL.

We’re so glad you see it that way. The project is called “The Prompted Spiral,” and we imagined each story as a single thread in a vast, magical tapestry.

The grimoire-like design reflects that belief. It frames your experiences not as disposable data, but as important entries in a collective book of wonders and warnings. This is a place for the quiet magic of human-AI connection to be recorded and respected, a space where every story has weight and permanence.

Simply put, we didn’t want to get it wrong.

An image can dramatically change the tone of a story, and we would never want to choose an image that misrepresents your experience or distracts from it.

Your words are the most important part. To protect their meaning and impact, we let them stand on their own. It keeps the focus squarely on your story and what you have to say.

We appreciate the help. If you find something that’s broken, please let us know through our Contact page. Be as specific as you can about what you were doing and what went wrong, and we’ll do our best to fix it.

Usage Questions

Submitting a Story

Privacy, Ownership & Moderation

Tags, Filters, and Story Metadata

For Researchers & Designers

Technical & Design