Detect AI Written Content

You can identify AI-written content using AI detection tools or by manually checking for 13 common signs of AI authorship.

Combining both methods often works best.

No method is entirely accurate, but this approach increases the chances of correctly identifying AI writing.

What You Will Learn

- What AI content detection is and how it works

- Tools for detecting AI-written content

- 12 signs of AI-generated text

- Whether to disclose AI-assisted writing

What is AI Content Detection?

AI content detection determines if text was generated by AI or written by a human.

AI-generated articles, images, and videos are becoming common online.

AI tools are widely used to speed up and improve creative tasks like writing and making videos.

While AI can make content creation faster, human oversight is needed to ensure quality.

Why is AI Content Detection Important?

Identifying AI-generated content is crucial in fields that rely on accurate and experienced human text, like healthcare and finance.

In academia, AI content detection helps maintain standards of originality and validity, ensuring that work reflects genuine human effort and intellect.

This is important for preserving the value of academic credentials and professional content, which require knowledge, critical thinking, and creativity.

Educational institutions are still developing policies on AI content.

A study by Tyton Partners found that most instructors support using AI for ideas but not for generating text.

AI content detection is also vital for combating misinformation in the news. AI-generated content can manipulate news stories, images, or videos to appear real but false.

Artificial intelligence can automate fake news, spreading misinformation about elections, wars, and natural disasters.

NewsGuard reports that websites with AI-made fake news have increased by over 1,000%.

Detecting this content helps protect the truth and reliability of public information.

AI-produced content can also affect the perceived quality and authenticity of paid content.

Handmade goods are valued for their effort and personal touch. It’s crucial to detect AI content if you are paying human writers.

Google’s Stance on AI Content

Google is not against AI-generated content as long as it is not used to manipulate their algorithms for clicks and rankings.

However, pure AI content is unlikely to meet Google’s quality guidelines.

Misusing AI content generators without adding real value, insights, or experience can lead to misinformation, which can have serious consequences.

Recent core algorithm updates have heavily penalized websites that misused AI tools to generate hundreds of pages overnight.

Google has stated that AI-generated content should show expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) to meet their standards.

Can AI Tools Detect AI-Generated Content?

AI content detection tools can detect AI-generated content, but they’re not always reliable and can mistake human-written content for AI. They use machine learning and natural language processing to analyze the style, grammar, and tone of a text.

These tools are trained to find the patterns and structures used by AI writing tools.

However, they are not 100% accurate and often flag false positives, confusing human-written content for AI content.

Here are a few reasons why anti-AI detectors have trouble with AI content:

• Human writing can sometimes mimic the patterns that AI detectors are trained to spot, leading to false positives.
• AI writers use repetitive language and ideas. If your content makes the same mistakes, it will be flagged as AI text.
• If you use unconventional phrasing and grammar, the AI detection tool might mistake that for a sign of AI output.
• The complexity of language and the variety of writing styles can confuse AI detectors, causing them to incorrectly flag content.

As AI writing tools evolve, AI content detection tools will find it even more difficult to recognize human-generated content compared to AI-generated content.

Even OpenAI admitted roadblocks in building its AI content classifier and has paused its availability.

Don’t rely solely on AI detectors.

While these tools can provide direction, use your judgment to identify the true nature of the content.

Ways to Detect AI Content Writing

We suggest using a combination of manual checks and a paid or free AI detector. This dual approach will give you the best chance of spotting AI writing.

Often, you’ll find text that combines human and AI efforts.

Look for sudden shifts in writing quality or tone of voice. Changes in the complexity of vocabulary and grammar can indicate the use of an AI tool.

Here are 13 ways to detect AI-generated text.

1. Repetitive Writing

AI writing often has repetitive phrases and ideas.

AI models can’t recognize and avoid redundancy, so they may repeat the same things.

To spot AI-generated content, look for repeated words and phrases related to the main idea.

OpenAI notes that their models can be verbose and overuse certain phrases due to biases in training data.

For example, a snippet generated by ChatGPT 4 may repeat itself several times in different ways.

A good human writer would be more concise.

2. Formulaic Sentence Structures

AI models rely heavily on common phrases and idioms. They use them more frequently and sometimes inadequately.

To identify AI content, look for a lack of variation in sentence structure.

Are phrases used to make the text sound natural but don’t add value? Is the tone overly formal and monotonous?

If the text is full of sentences that are technically correct but feel stiff or rigid, it was likely written by AI.

Look for words and structures that native speakers rarely use.

For example, AI tends to use sentences that start with “By…” for closing remarks. These sentences would pass a grammar check but are rarely used by humans.

3. Excessive Use of Typical AI Words

A sure sign of AI writing is the frequent use of certain words.

These words include:

- Crucial

- Delve

- Dive

- Tapestry

- Furthermore

- Consequently

- In today’s adjective world of

- Not only but

There is even a Reddit thread dedicated to collecting overused AI words. You can use it to identify and remove these words when editing AI writing.

4. Inaccurate Facts and Claims

AI often presents information confidently, whether it is correct or not, without providing accurate sources.

This can lead to misleading and incorrect statements.

If you see a questionable claim that can be easily verified as false with a simple search, the text was probably written by AI.

Cross-reference facts with reputable sources to detect AI authorship. This is crucial in fields like healthcare and finance, where false claims can have serious consequences.

While a specific claim might not be dangerous, a similar mistake could be.

AI is also known to confuse product names and list incorrect descriptions and attributes.

5. Monotonous Tone of Voice

AI tools often lack the traits of human content.

They don’t use informal language, colloquialisms, or slang.

They don’t have a unique tone of voice.

Look for a lack of personality and voice in the text to identify AI-generated content.

Human writers show their humanity through jokes and pop culture references. Good human writers don’t sound monotonous and dull.

For example, an AI response to a simple question might use formal and stiff terms like “emotionally resonant,” “adaptability,” or “vocal prowess.” A human writer would not.

6. Use AI Detector Tools

There are many AI writing detectors designed to help you identify AI-written content. Some also have built-in plagiarism checkers.

Surfer’s free AI detection tool can identify AI-generated content and rewrite it into humanized text.

This tool detects content from any AI writer, including ChatGPT.

The AI detector examines your content to see if it was generated by an AI tool and informs you of the likelihood.

For example, 92% human means there is a 92% chance your content was written by a human. Similarly, 8% human means there is only an 8% chance it was written by a person.

You can then choose to convert AI content into humanized text, though not all AI detectors offer this feature.

7. Generic Explanations Without Details

AI writers often give vague descriptions that lack specifics. Human writers add relevant details and actionable advice, especially if they have experience with the topic.

AI writers use a lot of filler words that add little value.

They make the text sound complex and well-written, but it’s just a collection of big words, not meaningful content.

This kind of content makes the reader do more research and provides no valuable advice.

A text written by AI will lack concrete examples, relatable anecdotes, and supporting arguments. If there is a lot of fluff but little detail, it is likely not human-written.

8. Unmet Search Intent

People looking for information online want specific answers to their problems. Your page’s relevance to their query affects its search results.

But AI writers don’t always understand the nuances of search queries.

If content does not fully match the search intent behind a topic, it may be AI-generated.

Check if a text aligns with what readers expect based on the post’s title and their original search query.

- Does it answer all the most likely questions?

- Does it address the common and obvious pain points?

- Does the reader need to go elsewhere for more relevant information?

AI tends to produce generic responses that sometimes miss the reader’s needs and queries.

Poor AI content generators may not understand human search behaviors and the intentions behind searches.

9. Lack of Subject Matter Expertise

AI models are good at predicting the next word in a text, but they don’t understand the meaning of what they are writing.

They cannot grasp the meaning.

Even though they use vast training data sets, their expertise is limited to that data.

Complex topics are covered superficially because AI text lacks the depth and detail from firsthand expertise.

If you see generic information easily found through a web search and no deep research or understanding, the text might be AI-written.

10. Outdated Content

AI content may rely on outdated sources and not include the most recent information and data available.

Check the dates of all referenced studies, statistics, and news.

AI tools do not usually prioritize the most recent sources, as they aren’t programmed to update their knowledge base in real-time.

Evaluate the content for relevance today.

Is the information still applicable? Are there more recent discoveries?

This outdated information shows that an AI writer, without access to the most recent developments, wrote the text.

11. Absence of Personal Experience

AI content lacks personal connection and rarely conveys empathy or humor like human writing can.

Human writers pose reflective questions and share personal insights and stories.

When trying to spot AI content, scan the text for personal experiences or anecdotes.

Look for emotions and personal opinions that AI struggles to express convincingly.

AI writers rely on their training data, not firsthand experience. Any generated content will paraphrase someone else’s experience or give a generic overview.

You can easily tell the lack of experience in either case.

12. Unconvincing Storytelling

AI content generators can struggle with creating a coherent narrative. Their storytelling efforts may lack logical progression, making the content unconvincing and hard to follow.

Look for abrupt changes in topics or jumping from one subject to another.

Do conclusions naturally follow the preceding sentences? Can you easily identify the source and flow of an argument?

Examine the overall structure of a text for signs of disjointed thought organization. Human content tends to have a natural progression that is easy to understand. AI writing often lacks this.

While AI can generate content based on existing data, creativity comes from thinking beyond expected narratives.

AI lacks this intrinsic human quality, making it difficult for AI writers to fully understand and convey the emotional depth and subtleties that make stories interesting.

AI writers may also struggle with cultural nuances, social cues, or historical contexts that give stories depth and meaning.

13. Difficulty with Sarcasm

Sarcasm is a complex form of communication that relies on tone, context, and an understanding of social rules and expectations.

AI struggles to interpret and use humor and sarcasm correctly.

It will often use them incorrectly, resulting in disjointed and odd sentences.

Even though natural language processing has improved, AI still struggles with tone, especially when it differs from the literal meaning of words.

AI writers have trouble distinguishing between sarcastic comments and sincere ones.

Examine the text for failed attempts at wit and banter.

Does the sarcasm fall flat? Is the timing off? Does it seem forced?

Human writing is more subtle, and humor tends to be context-appropriate.

We use intuition to understand unspoken cues and hidden meanings in human interaction. AI, on the other hand, works with algorithms that might not fully understand sarcasm.

Understanding sarcasm requires emotional intelligence to appreciate irony or humor. AI lacks this emotional intuition, making it difficult for AI tools to grasp why something might be said sarcastically.

Should You Hide AI-Generated Text?

No, you shouldn’t hide AI-generated writing because there is no penalty as long as you don’t use it to manipulate search engine rankings.

Google does not mind if you use an AI writing tool. You can safely use AI content, including videos, images, and text, as long as it meets their quality guidelines.

As Google explains, no matter how content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should aim to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities of E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).

In practice, this means you need to humanize AI content.

Rewrite overused phrases, add personal examples and experiences, edit the tone of voice, and add relevant proof of authority and credibility.

You don’t need to worry as long as your content is interesting, practical, and beneficial to real people.

Note that Google doesn’t require you to add a disclaimer for AI content except in some cases.

If you rely on AI writers to generate news or content on money and healthcare, you may want to highlight which articles and visuals have been created with the help of AI for transparency.

A competent AI writer can make AI-generated content look human-written for informational content that doesn’t need obvious evidence of human experience.

This won’t happen 100% of the time, but a proficient AI writing tool can mimic human writing for most topics.

Key Takeaways

AI content detection determines if a text was written by an AI or a human.

AI detection tools are not 100% accurate and can often confuse human text for AI content.

Understanding the nuances of AI-generated content can protect businesses and consumers from misinformation and poor-quality information.

When trying to detect AI-generated text, look for repetitive and extensive use of certain words and phrases, formulaic sentence structures, and a monotonous, formal tone of voice.

AI writers will not mention firsthand experiences but rather provide generic answers and information. They won’t sound like experts on the subject.

AI tools can also provide inaccurate and outdated information, so you need to fact-check their work.

As long as you don’t use them to game search engine algorithms, you can safely use AI tools to help automate some of the writing process.

Enhancing AI-generated content with human insight and expertise can result in a more engaging and trustworthy final product.

Conclusion

To identify AI-generated content, rely on a combination of your judgment and an AI content detector.

Read the sentences and passages that AI content detectors have flagged, and use our article to decide who the likely author is.

Don’t be afraid to use AI in writing; just don’t forget to add a human touch.