5 Ways to Detect Text Written by AI

The best way to figure out if an artificial intelligence wrote something may be to ask AI. We tested five AI-detection services with text written by ChatGPT and text written by a human: Here are the results.

By Chandra Steele

Can you spot ChatGPT-generated text? The AI is being used in emails, cover letters, marketing pitches, college essays, coding, and even some news stories. But sussing out what’s written by a human and what’s written by a computer program may be best left to the computers themselves.

Detection tools have proliferated in the wake of ChatGPT and alternative large language models (LLMs). Most are free, albeit with character limits (something that can be bypassed by pasting in chunks of text at a time). An AI detector can serve many purposes, from making sure the text you write doesn’t come off as too generic and stilted to uncovering deception from job candidates.

Educators are at the top of the list of those who could use a reliable way to tell whether something has been written by an AI. And they have indeed been among the early adopters of AI detector software. But just as ChatGPT and its kind can be unreliable, so are the AI detectors.

In the ChatGPT subreddit, a high school student recently sought advice after being falsely accused by their history teacher of…