Where the AI is, and where it isn't

Last updated October 9, 2026

One part of the game can use AI while you play: the townsfolk who fill empty chairs. The game tells you when that is on. Much of the game itself (pictures, the narrator's voice, the writing and the code) was made with AI, and we say so. AI never decides anything about you.

While you play: the townsfolk

Empty seats at your table can be filled by six townsfolk. They work in one of two ways, and the game says which before a case is dealt:

Scripted. Their alibis and votes come from lines written in advance and are worked out in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Live. Their alibis, votes and guesses are written by an AI model, Anthropic's Claude. To do that, our server sends Anthropic which case it is, the name your table gave the place, and the alibis written at your table. Players' names are not sent: the model sees "Player 1", "Player 2".

What is true of the live townsfolk:

You are always told. A townsperson is marked as one, and the seating screen says whether they are live or scripted. Nothing in the game pretends an AI is a person.
They can't cheat. A guilty townsperson guessing what the others noticed is never shown the answer.
Their replies are checked for shape and length before the game uses them. A reply that fails, or a model that doesn't answer, is replaced by the scripted line and the case carries on.
There are limits. Each visitor, each room and the whole site have daily caps, so the model can't be run up or used for anything but the game.
They can still be wrong or odd. They are meant to be gentle and silly. Nothing a townsperson says is advice or a statement of fact. If one says something it shouldn't, tell us at support@alibitown.com.

What is never sent to an AI

Players' names, your town, its map and its case files.
Cases you write yourself. Those are always played with scripted townsfolk.
The Daily Alibi and the story that runs under the cases, which are worked out in your browser.
Your key, your email address, or anything about a payment.

What AI is never used for

Deciding anything about you: there is no scoring, profiling, moderation or pricing by AI, and no automated decision with a legal or similar effect.
Advertising. There is none.
Training. We do not train any model, and we do not give what you write to anyone to train one. Anthropic handles what we send under its terms for business customers, which say it does not use that data to train its models; see Anthropic's privacy policy.

What was made with AI

Pictures. The six townsfolk, the buildings, the hillside, the season decorations, the picture for each place and the pictures used to share the game are AI-made paintings. They show nobody real.
The narrator. The voice that reads the introduction and the rules is a synthetic voice, recorded in advance. It never reads out anything a player typed.
The short film on the first page is made from the same paintings, three of them brought to life by an AI video model. Nobody in it is a real person.
The words and the code. The cases, the seasons' stories and the game's code were written with the help of AI (Anthropic's Claude), directed by the person who runs Alibi Town.
The music is not AI: it is composed by ordinary code in your browser as it plays.

Children

Alibi Town is meant to be played by families together, with an adult seating the table. An adult decides whether live townsfolk sit in; with scripted townsfolk, nothing written at the table leaves the device.

If this changes

If AI is ever used anywhere else in the game, or anything more is sent to it, this page and the Privacy page change on the same day.