# Redundant precaution Part of [The AI Tells Index](https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells). A tell signals low effort. It does not identify an author. Skilled writers produce every shape listed here, some of them daily, and automated detectors misread those writers for it at rates measured above 60 percent on non-native English prose. Nothing in this index proves that a machine wrote anything. Read an entry as one piece of evidence to weigh against the false-positive notes printed beside it. ## Facts - Id: redundant-precaution - Category: Model register (model-register) - Subcategory: assistant-leak - Also known as: consult a professional, this is not advice, unsolicited disclaimer - Status: Active. Currently signals low-effort writing. - Severity: low - Evidence grade: community-observed (named by practitioners, no formal measurement exists) - Languages: en - Added: 2026-08-15 - Updated: 2026-08-17 - Page: https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells/redundant-precaution ## Description A disclaimer attached to material that carries no risk. A note about numbering workshop bins ends by advising the reader to consult a professional. In medicine and finance the precaution is real and required. Here it is a reflex firing on any text shaped like advice. ## Why it reads as machine-written Liability language is the trained closing move for anything advice-shaped, and it keys on shape, not on subject. The tellsign list files the phrasing as a generic liability closer appended to advice-adjacent answers. Anthropic dated system prompts document the same class of habit being instructed away, which is first-party evidence of the pull, and not of what any product now emits. Where regulation requires a disclaimer it belongs in the text, and that case sits outside this entry. It is not a false positive. ## Detection Type: deterministic (a regular expression, run as written) Scope: sentence ECMAScript regular expression. The build validator compiles it and tests it against this entry's own specimens. ```regex \b(?:please\s+)?(?:consult|speak\s+to|check\s+with)\s+(?:a|your)\s+(?:qualified\s+|licensed\s+|certified\s+|medical\s+|legal\s+|financial\s+)?(?:professional|physician|attorney|advisor|adviser)\b|\bthis\s+(?:is\s+not|does\s+not\s+constitute)\s+(?:legal|medical|financial|professional|investment)\s+advice\b ``` Flags: i ## Examples Constructed specimens. Written for this index. Never quoted from anyone's posts. ### Specimen 1 Before, exhibiting the tell: > Numbering the workshop bins by shelf works well for most setups. As always, consult a professional before applying this to your own setup. After, repaired: > We number the workshop bins by shelf instead of by tool. The scheme broke in March 2026 when we added a second rack, so every number now starts with the rack letter. Note: Nothing about bin labels carries risk. The repair puts the failure case where the disclaimer was. Figures in this repair are invented for the specimen. ### Specimen 2 Before, exhibiting the tell: > Pick the notebook app your team already opens every morning, and the rest takes care of itself. This does not constitute professional advice. After, repaired: > Pick the notebook app your team already opens every morning. Ours was the one already installed on 30 of 34 laptops, which ended a two-month evaluation in an afternoon. Note: The disclaimer is replaced by the number that made the decision. Figures in this repair are invented for the specimen. ## False positives Who legitimately writes this way. Regulated professions attach disclaimers because compliance requires them. Health, legal and financial writers have no choice, insurers mandate the wording, and in those genres a missing disclaimer is the actual failure. Publishers append a house disclaimer to every article by template, which puts the phrase in copy the writer never touched. Safety documentation for tools and chemicals carries it for good reason. Judge by subject and by obligation: a disclaimer on a topic with no bodily, legal or financial exposure, in a publication with no house rule requiring one, and with no named risk anywhere in the surrounding text. ## Model attribution Common across assistant products. No single vendor owns it. Anthropic publishes dated system prompts that instruct against adjacent hedging habits, which documents the tendency at one vendor and says nothing about the rate at any other. ## Sources 1. vale-ai-tells, 111 machine-checkable rules https://github.com/tbhb/vale-ai-tells (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) 2. Anthropic dated system prompts, release notes https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/release-notes/system-prompts (tier: vendor; accessed 2026-08-14) ## Status history Ids are permanent. A retired tell keeps its id and its page. - 2026-08-15, Active: Active and graded community-observed on 2026-08-15. The tellsign list names the closer directly, and Anthropic dated system prompts show the neighbouring habit being suppressed by instruction, which supports the pull without establishing a rate. Severity is low because the regulated case is common and legitimate, and because the repair is a deletion, not a rewrite. Pattern verified on 2026-08-15 against both specimens and against three ordinary sentences, including one about an insurer that mandates a dosing disclaimer. ## License CC BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Attribution: The AI Tells Index, feedsquad.com/ai-tells Reuse the data, including commercially. Keep the attribution line. --- Dataset version 1.0.0. Schema version 1. Part of [FeedSquad](https://feedsquad.com). Built by [Herman Foundry](https://hermanfoundry.com) from Levi, Finnish Lapland.