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AI · Transparency
How AI works
in NothingBox.
NothingBox uses AI in five small places. In every one of them, the AI never sees anything you have written or said. Here is exactly what it receives, what it gives back, and what happens when it isn't available.
Where AI is used
Fresh prompts
When you pick a mood and open a space
About 1 in 5 times
Now and then, instead of a pre-written prompt, Claude Haiku writes one short prompt for your mood and the time of day. The rest of the time, a pre-written prompt is used and no AI is involved.
✓ Receives only: the mood you picked, the time of day, and the last few prompts it showed you
✓ Writes one to three short sentences
✗ Never receives anything you have written
Name It reflection
After the four Name It questions
When you finish Name It
Claude Haiku writes one sentence that witnesses the answers you tapped. Nothing more.
✓ Receives only: the four options you tapped — no free text
✓ One sentence, under 25 words, starting "It sounds like" or "It feels like"
✗ Never gives advice, asks questions, or offers a silver lining
Daily room note
When you tap a word for your day
When you tap a word
You tap one word for how today felt. Claude Haiku writes a short note back, like one left for someone before bed.
✓ Receives only: the word you tapped
✓ At most two short sentences
✗ Never tells you to do anything
PS: With Love
The morning after a late-night session
Occasionally
A short morning letter from NothingBox. Claude Haiku writes it from a few facts about the session — not from anything you wrote. The letter is kept on your device.
✓ Receives only: which kind of session it was, the mood you picked, how long you stayed, the hour, whether you have been back before, and the role you chose in the app, if any
✓ Ten lines at most
✗ Never receives the words you wrote that night
Exercise search and suggestions
When you search for an exercise, or suggest one
Only when you use it
If you type what you're looking for, Claude Haiku picks the closest exercises from our library. If you suggest a new exercise, it checks whether something similar already exists.
✓ Receives: the short request you type, or the suggestion you submit
✓ This is the only place AI sees words you typed — and only because you typed them to search
✗ Your search is not stored
The rules AI follows
Every AI call in NothingBox follows these rules
◎ Your writing stays out. Journal entries, burn letters, unsent messages, letters, journeys and voice never reach any AI.
○ Witness only. It never tells you what to do, what to feel, or how to interpret your experience.
◌ No diagnosis. "Blank" is not depression. "Scattered" is not ADHD. We don't go there.
〰 No memory. Each call starts fresh. The AI has no record of your previous visits.
✦ A few seconds at most. If AI is slow, a pre-written response appears instead.
What AI never does in NothingBox
✗
Reads what you write. Not your journal, not your burn letters, not your letters to your future self, not your journeys.
✗
Hears your voice. Speak Out Loud and Voice Witness record nothing. Voice memos stay on your device.
✗
Looks at your camera. The mirror is only a mirror. No frame is captured or analysed.
✗
Diagnoses you or gives advice. "You should…" does not exist in NothingBox's AI. The role of AI here is to witness, not to direct.
✗
Builds a picture of you. It has no memory between calls and cannot learn your patterns.
When AI isn't available
Every AI feature in NothingBox has a pre-written response that appears if AI is unavailable, slow, or returns something unexpected. NothingBox works completely without AI.
"It sounds like you're carrying something that hasn't found its shape yet. That's okay. It's still real."
Example: the pre-written response for the Name It reflection.
The AI model
NothingBox uses one model: Claude Haiku by Anthropic — a small, fast model that follows tight instructions reliably.

Requests travel from our server through Emergent, the platform NothingBox is built and hosted on, to Anthropic. Both process the request under their own terms — see Anthropic's privacy policy. What they receive is exactly what is listed above, and nothing else.

Until 1 October 2026, a few features sent journal text to a different AI model. We removed them. This page describes NothingBox as it is now.
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