How To Spot AI Writing

This is a really interesting analysis:

He goes through a number of language “tells” that differentiate AI writing from human writing. My favorite one is his discussion of the em dash as a distinguishing factor. “Pop quiz. Which keys on your keyboard do you press to type an em dash? Yeah, I’m guessing most of you don’t know.”

That is an interesting video, but I find myself in a dilemma. Historically, I have used the em dash, and now I am paranoid about using it for fear that my writing will be interpreted as AI-generated when in fact it was not. Additionally, I have always had a tendency to group clauses in threes, and I also like alliteration. This I will continue to do, because it is very natural for me, probably from listening to decades worth of sermons in which there were three points and a conclusion. And my former pastor was adept at using alliteration in his sermons. :slightly_smiling_face:

The point is, while there are some telltale signs of AI-generated text, we must be careful, because AI was trained on actual human writing, which means that for some of us, our writing may sound like AI-generated text when in fact it is quite human.

And as I think about this, I realize that I do have a tendency to write in the third person as a result of too many years in school in which third-person writing was strongly encouraged and often mandated. This, too, can be interpreted as AI-generated even though it may not be. That said, I am trying to retrain myself to write more in the first person and with more active voice.

The above was written entirely by a human. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I use the em dash all the time, except I never type it. I just use the regular hyphen. And yes, I realize that makes me a horrible person. :smiley:

I also use clauses with threes.

I like to think that the rest of my writing’s qualities undo the potential AI signals from those couple of bad habits.

Random fun tidbit. Virginia Satir proposed that there were five human communication modes, one of which is “computer.” And in computer mode, everything is third-person and detached. Satir died in 1988, so she defnitely pre-dates AI.

Placater: I know you’re probably having a rough day, and it’s totally understandable, but you were a few minutes (when it’s actually an hour) late to work.
Blamer: You’re late for work again! What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you ever do anything right?
Computer: A person who valued their employment would arrive to that place of employment on time.
Distractor: You’re late for work! My uncle was never late for work, and he worked at McDonald’s. Did you know McDonald’s has actually served trillions of customers, not just billions?
Leveler: Hey, you’re an hour late. We had to reschedule three meetings this morning because we didn’t know when you’d be coming in. What’s going on?

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You will pry the em dash from my cold, dead hands. I laud the frontier labs for bringing this valuable tool to the attention of LLMs everywhere.

Alliteration is a time-honored rhetorical tool. It was also a key structural feature—perhaps the key structural feature (see what I did there …)—of Old and Middle English poetry. It played the role that rhyme plays in Modern English poetry. The LLMs are just taking us back to our Old English roots. :wink:

The fact that LLMs can write well doesn’t mean that we can’t.

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That is a good reminder. I’ll just have to transcend my paranoia about others assuming what I wrote was AI generated. :slightly_smiling_face: – The human version

The AI generated version: “Precisely so. The presence of a capable imitator is no argument for the original to lay down his pen.”

That is so terrible!! :rofl:

AI thinks it’s a “capable imitator”? That’s fantastic. :smiley:

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You’re overthinking it. You know you wrote what you wrote, and you used the style that pleases you, so continue. Straight ahead. Your readers who trust your word, will not think it is not your work. If someone decides it is not, then so what. That’s their mistake, not yours.

AI’s are and will be trained to overcome the AI-tells mentioned by the video, and very soon the video will be old news, if it isn’t already.

Katie

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Thanks, Katie. I needed that encouragement to just write and not second guess. Much appreciated! :pray:t2:

Ha Ha. I handed this collection of “AI Tropes” to Claude and asked if it would be a useful foundation for a skill or pasted into my user preferences and I got a response that roughly maps to where the Venn diagram of an eye roll, “GURL …”, and “Oh Honey” meet.

This episode of the 99% Invisible podcast on this topic is good. The Em Dash - 99% Invisible

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Thanks, I’ll check it out.

Thanks for the link! If the em dash was good enough for Emily Dickinson, it’s good enough for our bots.