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Artificial intelligence is changing the ways people create and consume content. From drafting emails and coming up with new ideas, to composing articles or preparing reports, AI tools are capable of taking on tasks that require hours of manual effort. For many people, the result is that day-to-day tasks can be completed more quickly and easily.
However, as AI-generated content begins to become more widespread, it is also creating a more recent problem: identifying whether content has been generated by an AI, or whether it was created by a human. This is becoming an issue across all environments such as, schools, workplaces, publishing organizations, as well as the internet, as the originality and integrity of the content has a huge impact on its perceived credibility.
It is becoming increasingly important to understand how AI-generated content works, how it may be identified and what responsible AI use looks like.
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The Rise of AI-Generated Content
One of the key reasons that AI is being used is that it can make some tasks faster. Simply by sending a prompt to an AI, it can provide an ordered draft that may be achieved within seconds of submitting it. This will be helpful in situations where people are having difficulty producing their article, generating ideas for a presentation, or collating information they have found, etc.
AI can also take on more mundane tasks; marketers have used AI for generating headlines, businesses have used it for providing a draft of a customer interaction/communication, and students have used it to summarize complex topics. This is simply part of how an AI makes work easier, but the convenience does not mean that AI-produced content is ready to be presented in some situations (an article submitted for essay writing, for example). AI text can contain a number of potential errors such as false facts, repeated writing patterns, information that is out of date, or statements that might seem convincing, but are indeed factually incorrect without more context.
Because of these potential issues the input of a human has become key to providing a solid piece of work with AI.
What is an AI Detector?
An AI detector is a mechanism that analyzes a piece of content that could have been written by an artificial intelligence and gives it an approximate score to represent the possibility that it was, although not necessarily. It is typically about analyzing words based on their patterns, rather than simple text searching of a specific AI or phrase. It may also look at sentence construction, predictability of word choices, and patterns, as AI content may sometimes follow relatively similar structural rules, something a detection system will look for.
However, it is important not to take the result from an AI detection tool as definite truth. They are really there to offer an indication of possible AI written text, instead of concrete evidence. This is especially true considering the fact that certain texts written by humans might be very structured, and that AI created text can be heavily altered by human hands. For these reasons taking decisions based purely on a single score can often lead to inaccurate results.
Why AI Detection Results Need to be Taken with a Grain of Salt
Many people are often mistaken into thinking that an AI detection tool works like a fingerprint that leaves a unique impression that is one of its own kind. However, with the way text is produced through both people as well as the development of AI technology, actually getting to determine that there has been interference from machines can be much harder than you may think. This can be due to the fact that someone who has worked with a computer may write something and then used AI for the grammatical or organizational correction within 3-4 specific sentence constructions within a piece, or it can be that someone has tried to write something themselves and has used AI to produce most of the article itself and then rewritten several portions.Â
Between these examples there is a wide variation of final results; one more "human-like" than another.Â
A writer's way of speech is a big reason why there is so much variation also; if for example, a speaker does not speak English as a first language, they are prone to simpler sentence structure or repeated words. Based on the detection tool it can seem that some language uses AI, where actually the information itself might be from a genuine source.
These reasons are why, on every organization or individual using artificial content identification, the results are viewed along with all evidence of writing history or sources; including multiple drafts, references given, edit history, and context related to how the work was made in the first place.
The Importance of Human Editing
Creating a basic draft from a prompt received by an AI need not take away from a person's desire to have some ownership over the content itself, or at least have it come from their own style. Instead, an AI could act as a helpful tool that provides you with content to get started, from which you as the human writer must verify all information that has been obtained, add their own contributions or suggestions, reconstruct parts to better fit into what you want to convey, and also use own word patterns that are individual to you.
A human should always double check facts where they matter (like if someone was writing for a company report) as there can be factual errors, a lack of clear logical progression or explanations for content which aren't necessarily always accurate. Other advantages are of course, that you are writing what you want to write and, where there needs to be personal experience, for example, an AI can't write your specific story for you.
AI and Academic Integrity
The educational sphere has probably experienced the most friction against AI text because of the ease with which students can access it to complete work such as essays or assignments, and they can be answered by AI almost instantly.
This does not necessarily mean AI is entirely at fault, but rather the use made of the text is; if students complete an assignment with AI intervention and are then required to turn it in as if they were the ones producing the text with no assistance this raises issues in terms of who actually produced the output. Different schools have their own policy on how AI are used; some prohibit certain uses entirely, whereas others take a more lenient stance regarding AI used for proofreading and brainstorming. Students should always follow their school's applicable AI policy.
Having said this and not trying to condone cheating by use of AI, it is advisable for students at least, to try and keep all evidence and drafts of their work to produce some evidence of their own involvement at the end product.
Taking a Compromise
As AI is being developed incredibly rapidly, there are very few people that are likely to manage and avoid technology to that extent. Therefore, the best way forward appears to have some form of integration; humans have the responsibility for maintaining quality over everything in what is being produced using an AI as assistance (whether it is in businesses ensuring certain details are factually correct and suitable before being disseminated through the workplace) or an educational institution ensuring quality from students.
Therefore, even while AI detectors have their purpose, they can never rely on just detecting. There has to be the consideration of an individual's style of writing and work habits, how they produce content and from whom their information came from to create an appropriate assessment. As far as any form of text generation AI or human based writing is concerned ultimately only the quality of work that will decide its true success, as if it fulfills all needs that there are from this particular document.
AI is now an accepted tool in our arsenal when dealing with writing. When used thoughtfully, AI can help writers work more efficiently while still relying on human judgment, editing and expertise to shape the final result.
