Student Handbook - The DIY AI School

You run a business. You want AI working for it without handing your customers, your books, and your passwords to a vendor whose terms you never read. This school teaches you to run it yourself. This handbook is how we work together.

Version 1.1 · Effective September 9, 2026 · Operated by Carso Cybernetics

1. Who this school is for
2. What we are and are not
3. How learning works here
4. Keep your data: our house rules for AI
5. Your account, your staff, your work
6. What we record about you
7. Community standards and confidentiality
8. Live sessions and workshops
9. Payment, refunds, and cancellation
10. Strikes and removal
11. If you are in trouble
12. Contact and changes

1. Who this school is for

The DIY AI School is for business owners and the people who run businesses with them: operators, office managers, dispatchers, bookkeepers, the person who ends up being "the tech person" whether they wanted to be or not. You do not need a technical background. You need a business you are responsible for and the willingness to do the work yourself.

We are not a career school. We do not place people in jobs, and we do not teach toward a hiring bar. Everything here points at one outcome: your company using AI on infrastructure you control, under terms you understand.

2. What we are and are not

We are a curriculum in AI engineering and prompt engineering, live sessions and office hours with working engineers, paid workshops, and a community of owners solving the same problems you are.

We are not a vendor. We do not sell you a hosted AI product, and we do not take a cut when you buy one. We are not your lawyer, your accountant, or your IT department. We show you how things work and how to run them. Decisions about your business stay yours.

3. How learning works here

The curriculum is self-paced. Read it in any order, skip what you already know, and come back when a problem sends you looking. There are no grades, no deadlines, and no completion badges. The work is the point.

Learn by building. Every course ends in something running on a machine you control. Start with the exercises. Break things. That is how the understanding gets in.
Bring a real problem. Office hours and sessions work best when you show up with a task from your own business: an intake form, an invoice pile, a spreadsheet you hate. We will work it with you.
Ask plainly. "I do not understand this" is a complete sentence here. Nobody will make you feel small for asking. Nobody gets points for jargon.
Share what worked. When you get something running, tell the room. Another owner has the same problem.

Most members will read more than they build. That is fine. The curriculum is here when you need it, and it will still be here in a year.

4. Keep your data: our house rules for AI

The reason this school exists: most AI tools sold to small businesses are priced in your data. The terms of service grant the vendor rights to what you upload, what your customers type, and what your staff paste in, and they change those terms without asking you. A business that runs on those tools has quietly given away the one asset it cannot replace.

We teach the alternative, and we practice it. These are the house rules. They apply to the exercises here, and they are the habits we want you to take home.

Read the data clause before you sign. Every AI tool has one. Find the sentence that says what they may do with your inputs and outputs, whether they train on it, who they share it with, and how long they keep it. If you cannot find it in five minutes, that is your answer.

Never paste what you would not publish. Customer names, account numbers, financials, contracts, passwords, employee records, anything a competitor or a plaintiff would want. Not into a hosted model, not into a "free trial," not into a browser extension. If the exercise needs data, use fake data. We provide it.

Prefer what you can run yourself. A model on your own hardware, or on a server you rent and control, answers to you. That is the default we teach. A hosted service is a deliberate exception you make with your eyes open, for a stated reason, with the data clause read.

Own your keys and your accounts. Every service, domain, and API key your business depends on is registered to the business, with recovery in your hands, not an employee's personal email and not a vendor's dashboard you cannot export from.

Know what leaves the building. Before any automation goes live, you should be able to say in one sentence what data it sends, where, and why. If you cannot, it is not ready.

We hold ourselves to the same rules. See section 6.

5. Your account, your staff, your work

Accounts belong to a business. The owner holds the account. Staff seats are set at purchase, and an owner may add their people to it. The owner is responsible for their staff's conduct here, the same as anywhere else.
What you build is yours. Anything you make while working through this school, in a session, a workshop, or on your own, belongs to you and your business. We claim nothing.
Our material is licensed, not sold. You may use the curriculum for your own business and your own staff. You may not resell it, republish it, or teach it commercially under another name. Parts of the curriculum are adapted from open-source material; the notices are at /license.
One person, one login. Do not share credentials. If a staff member leaves your business, remove their seat the same day you remove their email.

6. What we record about you

We keep thorough records of how the school is used: which pages and files you open, how long you are active, what you click, when you sign in. We keep them because they tell us what is working and what is not, and because a school that says "keep your data" should know exactly what it keeps.

These records live on servers Carso Cybernetics operates. No analytics vendor, no advertising network, no third-party tracking script.
We do not sell them, share them, or use them for anything other than running and improving the school.
Email goes out through a transactional mail service that sees the address and the message, nothing else.
Ask and we will show you your own record, or delete your account and everything attached to it.

7. Community standards and confidentiality

The chat, the forum, the sessions, and the workshops are shared rooms full of people who own businesses and have limited time. The standard is simple: be the kind of person you would want in your own shop.

Expected

Be direct and be civil. Disagree with the idea, not the person.
Treat everyone in the room with the same respect, whoever they are and whatever they run.
Answer questions when you know the answer. Say so when you do not.
Stay on the work. Off-topic conversation belongs in the channels set aside for it.
Give the floor. In a live session, one person does not get to be the whole session.
Credit your sources. If you share someone else's work, say whose it is.

Confidentiality

Business intelligence and business data are the most valuable things a company owns. They are its crown jewels. People who gain access to another company's information often use it for their own benefit, not the owner's. That is how most owners learned to keep quiet, and it is why most rooms full of owners are useless.

This room is different, and it only works if everyone holds the same line:

If you are given access to another member's business information, it is confidential. Their numbers, customers, suppliers, pricing, problems, plans, and anything else they share here or show you in a session. You do not repeat it, trade on it, contact their customers or suppliers, or use it to compete with them. You may share a lesson you learned; you may not share whose business taught it or the details that identify them.

Violating this is not a strike. It is a ban. This is a community of entrepreneurs building on trust and respect. We do not exploit each other.

Not acceptable

Unsolicited selling. You may say what your business does. You may not pitch members, message them with offers, recruit them, or add them to lists. If someone wants an introduction, they will ask.
Harassment. Repeated unwanted contact of any kind, in the room or outside it. One "no" ends it.
Insults and slurs. Directed at anyone, for any reason.
Threats, or asking for help harming anyone. This includes asking for help getting into systems, accounts, or data that are not yours. We will not help, and you will be removed.
Recording or screenshotting other members without their consent. What we record is covered in section 8.
Spam, scams, and schemes. Multi-level marketing, "investment opportunities," and anything that needs a disclaimer.
Using the school to violate a law or another member's rights.

This is not a place for politics, religion, or debates about identity. Members hold every possible view on those things, and none of it is why anyone is here. Keep it out of the rooms.

8. Live sessions and workshops

We record sessions so members who missed one can watch it. Recordings are available to members only and are kept on our own infrastructure. If you do not want to appear, keep your camera off and use the chat. Cameras are always optional.
You do not record. No screen recording, no screenshots of other participants, no re-posting of session material outside the school.
Prepare. Read the relevant course pages before a session. Session time is for doing, not for the lecture you could have read.
Staff may attend on the owner's account, within the seat limit.
Workshops are scheduled and paid separately from membership unless the listing says otherwise.

9. Payment, refunds, and cancellation

Prices, terms, seat counts, and refund windows are stated at the point of purchase. The listing you bought from is the agreement.
Memberships renew as described at purchase and can be cancelled from your account before the next renewal. Cancellation stops future charges; it does not refund the current term.
Workshop refunds follow the window stated on that workshop's listing.
Removal for conduct under section 10 forfeits the remainder of the current term. No refund is issued.
Billing questions go to the contact in section 12.

10. Strikes and removal

We use a three-strike system. It is predictable on purpose. You will always know where you stand.

Strike	What happens
First	A written warning naming the rule and the behavior. You may reply in writing. The warning stays on your record.
Second	Suspension from the community, sessions, and workshops for thirty days. The curriculum stays available. No refund for the suspended period.
Third	Removal for the remainder of the paid term, no refund, and no re-enrollment without Carso Cybernetics' written agreement.

Some things skip the strikes. Threats, harassment after a clear "no," asking for help harming anyone or getting into systems that are not yours, and any illegal act result in immediate removal without refund. An owner is removed with their staff seats.

Strikes are issued by Carso Cybernetics in writing, with the date, the rule, and what was observed. Strikes older than twelve months are not counted toward removal, but they stay on the record.

11. If you are in trouble

We are a school, not a support service. If you or someone near you is in danger, call 911. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States. We will point you to help; we are not the help.

12. Contact and changes

Questions, reports of a rule violation, billing, and requests about your records go to tanaha@carsocybernetics.com. Reports are handled by Carso Cybernetics, and the person who made a report is not identified to the person reported unless the law requires it.

This handbook will change as the school grows. Every version is dated at the top. Material changes are announced to members by email before they take effect, and the current version is always at diyai.school/handbook.