Is Turnitin AI Detector Accurate? Testing How Reliable Is Turnitin

Joey Geller
9 min readApr 24, 2024

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Turnitin is a widely recognized tool for detecting plagiarism, used broadly in educational environments. It also possesses its own AI detector, employed by educators and other users to identify the involvement of AI in the creation of specific text. However, concerns about the reliability and accuracy of Turnitin’s AI detector remain, generating substantial debates on platforms such as Reddit.

In response to these concerns, we are engaging in an exhaustive review of Turnitin’s AI detector, with the aim of verifying its accuracy and effectiveness. We invite you to follow our exploration and discover the results of our investigation.

Understanding the Mechanics of Turnitin’s AI Detector

Before delving into the intricacies of Turnitin AI detection’s accuracy, it’s crucial to comprehend how the tool functions. Specifically aimed at allowing users, predominantly educators, to identify if AI writing tools like ChatGPT have been employed in assignments and academic papers, the detector is a product of Turnitin’s in-house team and tailored to identify the most frequent characteristics of AI-generated text.

Common signs of AI writers, including ChatGPT and Gemini, typically manifest as similar vocabulary, phrases, and sentence constructions among other unique “watermarks”. The AI detector of Turnitin is calibrated to recognize these signs, evaluating a complex set of factors and metrics in order to determine the likelihood of AI involvement in the creation of a text.

AIHumanizer: A Convenient Method of Evading Turnitin AI Detection

If you’re intrigued about how to outwit Turnitin’s AI detection, the solution is straightforward: opt for AIHumanizer. AIHumanizer stands as a leading AI writer designed to evade detection, equipped to infuse human-like qualities into any AI-created text. Test it today and effortlessly trick any AI detector.

Perceptions and Reviews of the Turnitin AI Detector

So, how accurate is the Turnitin AI detector? And does it detect ChatGPT? To delve deeper into these questions, we examined reviews and user feedback regarding this tool.

General User Experience

Like the rest of the Turnitin software suite, the AI detector is only accessible to educational professionals. Hence, it’s not something that any layperson can access and use. However, once you gain access, the tool is fairly user-friendly. All you need to do is upload the file or input the text you want to examine.

Turnitin’s AI detector will then scrutinize the text and furnish a report. This report will delineate what proportion of the text appears to have been generated with AI assistance, giving you a percentage score and highlighting the AI-assisted segments. Subsequently, you can delve into the text to differentiate between the human and AI-generated portions.

Public Perception of Turnitin

An easily accessible way to gauge the accuracy of Turnitin’s AI detection is through user and expert reviews. While there have been some favorable impressions of the tool, there exists substantial concern about its effectiveness. Numerous online conversations delve into its trustworthiness, with some users indicating it yields too many erroneous flags.

Beyond this, several reputable universities have publicly questioned Turnitin’s reliability. Vanderbilt University, for instance, discontinued the use of the AI detector due to its ineffectiveness. The University of California followed suit. Even the creators of Turnitin have admitted that their AI detection tool may not be entirely dependable.

Determining the Accuracy of Turnitin’s AI Detector

So, questioning the level of accuracy of Turnitin’s AI detector, it becomes apparent that the tool doesn’t enjoy universal trust for its reliability.

To truly understand the precision of its AI and human content detection, we conducted an experiment. We utilized AI tools, human writers, and AI paraphrasers to create distinct pieces of text and observed how Turnitin reacted to them. Click here to reveal the concluding results.

Does Turnitin Accurately Detect AI-Produced Content?

Our test begins with straightforward AI-written text derived from tools like ChatGPT and Gemini.

Initially, we prompted ChatGPT to compose 300 words on the topic of budget travel.

And here’s how the AI detector of Turnitin evaluated the text:

As evident, the AI writing was successfully identified.

Subsequently, Gemini was requested to draft a brief passage about Abraham Lincoln. This was the resulting text:

And the Turnitin AI detector’s evaluation:

Turnitin correctly identified the AI writing once again.

Lastly, Claude was instructed to generate a short content piece on addressing the fear of flying.

This is how Turnitin assessed that text.

Consistent in its evaluation, Turnitin was precisely accurate in its final assessment too.

Can Turnitin Accurately Detect Paraphrased Content?

In the ensuing stage of our study, we sought to examine how adeptly Turnitin’s AI detector could handle AI text slightly modified using a paraphrasing tool like QuillBot. All three original texts were paraphrased and subjected to a second scan on Turnitin.

Firstly, ChatGPT’s text was input into Quillbot for paraphrasing. This was the outcome:

Turnitin’s AI detector presented the following report:

Here, the first inaccuracies of Turnitin are disclosed. It was only able to identify 70% of the text as AI-originated, casting doubt over the remaining 30%.

Subsequently, Quillbot paraphrased the text from Gemini:

This was Turnitin’s verdict:

Turnitin correctly identified the entirety of the text as AI-produced.

Finally, Quillbot was used to paraphrase Claude’s content:

Turnitin’s AI scanner produced this third report:

On this last sample, Turnitin seemingly couldn’t differentiate clearly, determining the text to be a blend of AI and human input.

How Accurate is Turnitin in Detecting Human-Crafted Content?

To conclude our study, we manually wrote three text pieces without AI assistance, sticking to the same respective topics, to maintain test fairness.

The first topic tackled budget travel.

This is what Turnitin had to say:

The first sample gave rise to a significant false positive, with Turnitin erroneously recognizing the text as AI-generated.

Next, we discussed Lincoln:

Turnitin’s response was as follows:

This time, Turnitin accurately returned a 0% AI score.

Finally, we addressed overcoming aerophobia.

Here’s a snapshot of Turnitin’s scan outcome:

Another false positive arises. Turnitin inaccurately determined the text as 100% AI-generated despite it being entirely human-written.

Turning to AIHumanizer for Dodging Turnitin AI Detection

So, is the Turnitin AI detector accurate? Based on our testing, Turnitin has shown substantial efficiency in detecting AI text, yet it also occasionally faltered, producing dubious or incorrect results. This unpredictability renders it a challenging tool to work with. Consequently, some are left puzzled about how to circumvent Turnitin.

AIHumanizer presents a reliable solution. Armed with state-of-the-art humanization technology, AIHumanizer has the capability to convert any AI text, making it convincingly human and enabling it to go undetected by leading scanners. It can smoothly outsmart AI detection tools such as Turnitin, Originality, and GPTZero, among others. Furthermore, AIHumanizer guarantees against plagiarism and errors.

Capabilities

  • AI Evasion: Successfully evade all major AI detection tools, such as Originality and GPTZero.
  • Humanization Technology: Using sophisticated humanization technology, AIHumanizer transforms AI-written content into 100% human-grade content.
  • Guaranteed Originality: This tool consistently delivers original content, completely free of plagiarism.
  • Preservation of Intent: It ensures the preservation of the original intent and meaning of the writer.
  • Versatile Applications: Offers three unique bypass modes to help you evade all types of AI detectors.
  • SEO Boost: Generates content filled with keywords to aid in higher search engine rankings.
  • Multi-Language Support: Works efficiently in multiple foreign languages in addition to English.

Can AIHumanizer Effectively Evade Turnitin’s AI Detection?

We tested AIHumanizer’s performance against AI detectors like Turnitin with a stringent test. Three original AI-generated texts from ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini were run through this AI humanizer and then subjected to Turnitin’s AI detector.

Here’s an example showing how AIHumanizer modified our ChatGPT text to dodge Turnitin.

Following is Turnitin’s scan result for the first piece:

As evident, AIHumanizer completely blindsided Turnitin, earning a perfect 100% human (0% AI) score for its text.

Subsequently, we tasked AIHumanizer with humanizing Gemini’s text. Here’s the outcome.

And here’s the outcome of the second Turnitin AI detector scan:

Yet again, Turnitin was outsmarted. Despite being produced by an AI writing tool, it is believed that the text was composed by a human, thanks to AIHumanizer.

We repeated the process with the third text, originally composed by Claude.

Here’s the result of the third scan performed by the Turnitin AI detector.

Again, Turnitin was deceived. AIHumanizer’s smart humanization technology went under the radar of this top AI detector.

We further stretched AIHumanizer’s capabilities by having it rewrite two human texts that had initially failed the AI detection. The scan result for the first one was flawless.

And here’s the outcome for the second text, which once again achieved an impeccable score.

This establishes AIHumanizer not only as an exceptional tool for humanizing AI-authored content but also for its ability to humanize actual human-written samples in order to eliminate the risk of false positives.

Accuracy of Turnitin AI Detector: Evaluation Results

The following table encapsulates all our test results.

What conclusions can we draw from these outcomes? The data presented in the table comprehensively answers the question: Is Turnitin’s AI detection reliable? Unfortunately, it’s not. The tool frequently committed errors, misidentifying human text for AI-generated content and vice versa, thus displaying both hypersensitivity and imprecision.

If you’re anxious about being erroneously marked as AI by Turnitin, rest easy. AIHumanizer managed to outsmart it in all five tests. This means, AIHumanizer is an ideal solution for those seeking effective ways to evade AI detection consistently.

In Summary

To sum it up, our rigorous testing reveals that Turnitin falls short of its promise as a trustworthy AI detection tool. Although it sometimes succeeded in identifying AI-produced text, it also displayed significant inaccuracies, leading to false positives.

Given these insights, educators and users might have to exercise discretion when using Turnitin’s AI detector and consider other alternatives that promise consistent and more accurate performance.

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