How to Spot AI-Generated Text
If you’re a writer, editor, or proofreader, knowing how to spot AI-generated text is an increasingly important skill. As generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools become more advanced, the lines between human and machine-generated content are blurring. Professionals of all kinds are experimenting with using AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to produce emails, speeches, presentations, and other kinds of material. So much so, that there are concerns as to whether AI will replace writers.
However, while using AI to generate content has its benefits, it also has some significant pitfalls. In today’s post, we’ll explore some of these pros and cons. We’ll also take a look at the common signs that text is AI-generated, and how to proofread and edit AI-generated text.
Why Does It Matter if Content is AI-Generated?
As the use of AI tools becomes more prevalent, it’s important to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses – and impact on the quality of written content. While AI tools can produce text quickly, they often miss the nuances of human language, such as tone, context, and cultural references. AI-generated text also lacks originality, a quality that is prized in many disciplines, including academic writing. This lack of nuance can result in bland, unengaging, and uninspiring content.
AI can also produce incorrect, misleading, or imagined information – known as a hallucination – when generating written content. If such mistakes make it into your academic or professional work, it could seriously undermine your credibility. Interestingly, ChatGPT acknowledges its own limitations in this respect, and often reminds users to verify important information.
To further illustrate the issues concerning AI in writing, we’ve compiled a list of pros and cons of using AI tools to generate content.
Pros of AI-Generated Content
1. Produce Content Quickly
Probably the most significant incentive to use AI tools is speed. They can produce pages of written content in seconds, saving time for writers, marketers, students, and businesses alike. After all, time is money!
2. Save Money on Content Creation
On the subject of money – many AI tools are free or have reasonably priced monthly subscriptions. This saves businesses money, as they don’t need to hire a full content team.
3. Speed Up the Research Process
AI can quickly conduct research and generate ideas for new or unfamiliar topics. No one is an expert on every topic, and AI can be a good way to get up to speed. If you know how to write effective prompts for content creation, AI tools can quickly search the web to find ideas and inspiration.
4. Automate Routine Tasks
AI tools are also helpful in automating routine tasks. For example, a content writer might use AI to create an outline for a blog post, or generate a meta description to help their content rank higher on search engine results pages.
5. Language Support
AI can easily generate content in multiple languages, making it a valuable tool for businesses that operate in multiple countries. AI can aid in translation efforts and make it easier to create content that’s accessible to a global audience.
Cons of AI Writing Tools
1. Lack of Originality
AI relies on existing data and patterns to generate content. This means the text it produces often lacks creativity and originality. Without new research, insights, or perspectives, content becomes generic and repetitive.
2. Risk of Plagiarism
Because AI draws from existing content to generate its responses, using it significantly increases the risk of plagiarism. Plagiarism can have serious consequences, no matter the context.
As a student, for example, you are expected to submit writing in your own words, with proper citation. A failure to do so could constitute academic plagiarism, which may result in deducted marks, or even removal from the course. As a professional writer, accusations of plagiarism could harm your reputation and discourage clients from working with you in the future.
3. Quality Issues
While AI can produce coherent text, it often lacks the nuance and depth that human writers provide. AI does not have the ability to offer new perspectives, add humor, or incorporate personal anecdotes in a passage of text. This means time needs to be spent humanizing and refining the text, or else readers will be presented with low-quality, unengaging content.
4. Ethical Concerns
Since AI replicates existing data, there is the risk of running into legal and ethical issues. AI often generates content from multiple sources without citations or attribution, which can lead to issues with plagiarism, copyright infringement, and intellectual property laws.
AI has also been known to produce misinformation, as well as biased or offensive content.
5. SEO Impact
AI tools can be used for keyword research. They can quickly analyze high-ranking content to suggest keywords that perform best with search engine algorithms. However, content completely generated by AI is unlikely to perform well in search engine results.
Search engines like Google can detect AI content by using algorithms that recognize the typical features of AI-generated text.While the use of AI isn’t directly penalized, content that lacks substance, relevance, or originality is. If a piece of content has been produced by AI, and not edited to make it valuable for users, it’s unlikely that it’ll secure a top ranking spot. It may even be marked as spam.
6. Inaccurate Information
As we mentioned earlier, AI tools do not always provide accurate information. Information may be incorrect, outdated, or even entirely made up. ChatGPT, for instance, currently only draws on data published before 2023 in its responses.
Consider an example of a travel agent tasked with providing a Montreal travel itinerary for an elderly couple, including some restaurants and nightlife venues. The travel agent uses AI to generate a detailed itinerary for their clients. While AI can suggest popular attractions in Montreal, it might include dining and nightlife venues that have actually gone out of business, making the travel agent look unprofessional or untrustworthy.
All AI content must be fact-checked and edited thoroughly to ensure it is accurate and up-to-date.
How to Detect AI-Generated Content
As AI tools grow in popularity, proofreaders and editors will need to become confident in recognizing AI-generated content. They’ll need to learn how to advise their clients on AI-related issues, such as avoiding plagiarism, ensuring accuracy, and humanizing their language. As a writer, you may want to use AI to streamline your content creation process – but you should always edit any AI-generated text to improve quality and remove any telltale signs.
There are online tools that can detect AI-generated content, saving you valuable time. Some are free, while others offer trial versions. They aren’t foolproof, though, so it’s important to be able to identify AI-generated content manually. Here are a few common signs.
1. Repetitive Phrasing and Structure
AI tends to repeat certain phrases or sentence structures, giving text a robotic feel. Examples include phrases like “it’s important to note that” or “master the art of.” You might notice redundant words such as “ATM machine.” AI tools mainly aim to address the user’s query, so they might repeat the same main ideas throughout the content.
2. Inconsistent Tone
AI can struggle to maintain a consistent tone throughout a piece of content, mostly because it cannot understand the context. So, if you notice the text shifting from a formal tone to a casual one, chances are the text might be AI-generated! Human writers know that they must maintain a consistent tone in their writing.
3. Unnatural Language
Look out for awkward phrasing or unusual word choices that do not fit the context – common indicators of AI involvement. Let’s take this example: “We will now delve into the realm of college professors.”
A human writer is unlikely to use “delve” in this context. A more natural word would be “explore.” And the word “realm” is one of ChatGPT’s favorites, so it can be an indicator of unedited AI-generated text.
4. Factual Errors
AI sometimes produces factually incorrect information, such as an incorrect date. However, factual errors are not always a sign of AI-generated content. Humans also produce factual errors occasionally. If there are lots of errors, though, it could indicate that the content has been generated by AI.
5. Overuse of Data
Unlike human writers, AI often relies heavily on statistics and data without providing the necessary context. Sometimes these statistics are unnecessary and tangential, making the text confusing and hard to follow.
6. Lack of Depth
AI might cover topics superficially, without adding the extra details a human writer would. If you notice a lack of deeper insights about a topic, or a lot of filler, AI might have generated the content.
7. No Citations or References
Academic papers require citations and a reference list depending on the referencing style. AI tools generate content based on knowledge but cannot reference external sources. If an academic essay is missing citations or a reference list, the client may have used AI to produce the essay. In this case, you should advise the client to add citations and a reference list.
Proofreading AI-Generated Content
Whether content has been AI-generated or not, there are changes that you can and cannot make as a proofreader. The proofreader’s role is to make writing clear, concise, and consistent. They must also make every attempt to preserve the writer’s intended meaning. Proofreaders must exercise caution when proofreading academic content, as students are being assessed on their knowledge of the topic.
Here is what proofreaders can change:
- Repetitive phrasing and structure
- Redundancy
- Inconsistent tone
- Unusual word choice
Here is what proofreaders cannot change or add:
- Factually incorrect information
- Missing citations and reference lists
If you spot factually incorrect information, you can point it out to the client in a comment. The same can be applied to missing citations and reference lists. While you can adjust references (so that they adhere to reference styles), it is the client’s responsibility to add citations and references.
AI Prompting For Writers and Editors
Are you curious to learn more about editing AI content? Consider our AI Prompting For Writers And Editors course, which will teach you all you need to know about AI content editing. You have enough on your editing plate, so why not save yourself valuable time?
Unsure if the course is right for you? No worries! We offer free lessons for this course.
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