AI detection is a term that refers to the process of identifying whether a piece of text was written by a human or an artificial intelligence (AI) system. It works by using classifiers trained on large datasets of human-written and AI-written texts on different topics.
These classifiers use machine learning algorithms and natural language processing techniques to analyze the text and assign a confidence score that indicates how likely it is that an AI wrote the text.
What are AI content detectors?
AI content detectors, sometimes called GPT detectors, are algorithms designed to detect AI-generated content. Publishers or other stakeholders may use it to determine if a piece of content was written by artificial intelligence or has mostly human-written text. And while it is very difficult to actually differentiate between AI-generated text and that written by humans today, creators of generative AI detection tools are trying to make the technology more robust.
AI detectors may be used to detect when a piece of writing is likely to have been generated by AI. This is useful, for example, to educators who want to check that their students are doing their own writing or moderators trying to remove fake product reviews and other spam content.
However, AI detection tools are quite new and experimental, and they’re generally considered somewhat unreliable for now. Below, we explain how they work, how reliable they really are, and how they’re being used.
How AI detectors work
AI detectors are usually based on language models similar to those used in the AI writing tools they’re trying to detect. The language model essentially looks at the input and asks “Is this the sort of thing that I would have written?” If the answer is “yes,” it concludes that the text is probably AI-generated.
These tools use massive amounts of data sets collected from multiple sources, including the internet, to predict the likelihood of words and phrases in a piece of content or image. The more highly predictable the content’s next word in relation to the previous words in the content, the more likely the detector determines the word to be written by AI. Much like any machine learning model, algorithms are used to determine a pattern.
The detector renders a final verdict on the entire content — not always definitive — based on that pattern.
Specifically, the AI detection models look for two things in a text: perplexity and burstiness. The lower these two variables are, the more likely the text is to be AI-generated. But what do these unusual terms mean?
Perplexity
Perplexity is a measure of how unpredictable a text is: how likely it is to perplex (confuse) the average reader (i.e., make no sense or read unnaturally).
- AI language models aim to produce texts with low perplexity, which are more likely to make sense and read smoothly but are also more predictable.
- Human writing tends to have higher perplexity: more creative language choices, but also more typos.
Language models work by predicting what word would naturally come next in a sentence and inserting it. Low perplexity is taken as evidence that a text is AI-generated.
Burstiness
Burstiness is a measure of variation in sentence structure and length—something like perplexity, but on the level of sentences rather than words:
- A text with little variation in sentence structure and sentence length has low burstiness.
- A text with greater variation has high burstiness.
AI text tends to be less “bursty” than human text. Because language models predict the most likely word to come next, they tend to produce sentences of average length (say, 10–20 words) and with conventional structures. This is why AI writing can sometimes seem monotonous.
Low burstiness indicates that a text is likely to be AI-generated.
How reliable are AI detectors?
Based on experience, AI detectors normally work well, especially with longer texts, but can easily fail if the AI output is prompted to be less predictable or was edited or paraphrased after being generated. Also, detectors can easily misidentify human-written text as AI-generated if it happens to match the criteria (low perplexity and burstiness).
Research into AI detection tools indicates that no tool can provide complete accuracy. The highest accuracy found was 84% in a premium tool or 68% in the best free tool.
These tools give a useful indication of how likely it is that a text was AI-generated, but we advise against treating them as evidence on their own. As language models continue to develop, it’s likely that detection tools will always have to race to keep up with them.
Even the more confident providers usually admit that their tools can’t be used as definitive evidence that a text is AI-generated, and universities so far don’t put much faith in them.
What happens if your content is flagged by AI Content Detectors?
Getting flagged by an AI content detector does not have any direct impact on your content’s performance. You cannot deem AI-generated content as shallow or wrong as long as it is delivering value to the audience.
But at the same time, if your AI-generated content is factually incorrect or has no value to it, it can drop in search rankings and your traffic might take a hit. But this is true, irrespective of whether or not your content is flagged by an AI content detector.
Is AI content bad for SEO? Can Google detect AI content?
Another question that’s sure to cross your mind when we talk of SEO is this – Can Google detect AI content? Google has stated in Google Search’s guidance about AI-generated content that it does not care if the content is produced using AI or written by humans, as long as it is original, high-quality, and adheres to Google’s helpful content system.
In short, Google may detect AI content but it does not affect your search rankings as long as you’re writing for people and not search engines.
They have made it clear that if AI or automation in content production is used with the intent of manipulating search rankings, Google can detect it as spam and penalize the content.
However, not all use of AI for content generation is spam. So if your content follows Google’s E-E-A-T requirements – expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness – it can rank well even if it was generated by artificial intelligence.
Here’s what Google states – “AI has the ability to power new levels of expression and creativity and to serve as a critical tool to help people create great content for the web. This is in line with how we’ve always thought about empowering people with new technologies. We’ll continue taking this responsible approach, while also maintaining a high bar for information quality and the overall helpfulness of content on Search.”
How to outsmart AI content detection tools
To ensure that your AI-generated content is not easily detectable to AI content detection tools, following these best practices when using AI writers to create content is essential. This can also help enhance your content quality and the reader’s experience. Because if the algorithm can detect AI-generated text, a smart reader may be able to tell the difference as well.
Here are some tips to outsmart an AI content detector.
Do not create entire articles with AI content generators
This is the first and most important point we always like to stress. One of the biggest AI content creation mistakes you could make is to generate entire articles with an AI content writing tool. Generating content from start to finish with AI could result in inconsistencies, repetitions, and incoherent paragraphs, that are very easy for the GPT detectors to identify.
Not just that, this lack of quality and flow can also be pointed out by your readers which could be very bad for your brand reputation.
It is important to remember that AI writing assistants are exactly that – assistants to make your job easier. They are not meant to replace your writers and their writing skills. AI content creation tools should only be used for generating small sections of a long article, or to overcome writer’s block and give you a headstart when you are stuck.
Paraphrase the AI-generated content
The best way of bypassing AI content detectors is by rephrasing the AI-generated text to make it sound different while keeping the idea intact. But doing this manually every time you generate AI content will defeat the purpose of using an AI tool for content creation and you’d rather save some time if you wrote it from scratch.
You can, however, use a paraphrasing tool to do this quickly. Paraphrasing tools will rewrite your AI-generated content in a fresh and new style, without changing its meaning. You could use tools like ChatGPT for this.
Diversify your vocabulary
Generating long-form content with AI writing tools can often result in excessive use of certain words or repetition of some ideas. Because AI content generation tools are trained on existing data, they are likely to pick words and ideas that occur most frequently in the training datasets.
Patterns like these could be easy to detect for AI content detection tools. Bypassing AI content detection would require you to expand the vocabulary in your content. Try and identify repetitive words and use synonyms instead. Look for words that sound too formal or impersonal and replace them with more conversational language.
You can also use contractions like “don’t”, “can’t”, “should’ve”, etc. as most times an AI tool wouldn’t use these.
Take care of content structure
Another telltale sign of unsupervised, unmoderated use of AI in content creation could be a poor structure. If you are generating entire articles with AI writing tools without any human oversight, you would probably have a wall of text to publish. It is important that you pay attention to the structure of your articles and blog posts.
A good quality piece of content would have shorter paragraphs, sufficient white spaces between paragraphs, images, etc. that make the piece less monotonous.
Even if you have generated a long section using AI content creation tools, a good way of tricking AI content detectors would be by breaking that section into smaller paragraphs. To make this faster and easier, run your content through a content optimization tool. It will highlight excessively long sentences and paragraphs for you to edit, along with providing content improvement suggestions like grammar, spelling, etc.
Ensure the AI text matches your tone and style of writing
An important factor that you want to take into account when using AI-generated content is to see if it matches your brand’s tone and style. This is crucial not just for tricking AI content detectors but for your content’s overall performance too. If the content does not align with your tone and style, readers will notice the difference too. It will look inconsistent and half-hearted.
If part of your blog post or article has a different tone from the rest of the content, it also becomes easier for GPT detectors to identify it as AI content.
Make sure that the AI writing tool you use lets you define your tone and audience. If you’re using ChatGPT to generate content, define the tone and style you want to achieve in your input prompt.
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