A Human's Guide To Detecting AI Generated Content

AI tools and the existential crisis

SudoWrite is essentially developed for writers who have a part written by themselves and based on your prompt and the direction you want to take the work to, it can suggest you further paragraphs (which is one and a half, I believe) WHICH MEANS it's basically your sandwich machine. Couldn't trust it with an actual slice of cheese if I wanted to, but HEAR ME OUT!

I am not really aware of its other features, I think there's mind mapping and brainstorming but, I haven't explored this tool beyond its generation tool.

Is it good for writing?

Tinker with it, it's good enough, but the downside is, it'd never end the second paragraph (or the third, it depends) and it's going to leave you frustrated if you tried relying too much on it. You'd end up generating paragraphs after continuous paragraphs, eventually derailed from your original idea and vision, and a mess to clean up (Now, what did I say about making a mess, Sharon? That's what I am talking about).

PSA: No Sharons were hurt or harmed in the process.

• Pi AI

Oh look, it's 3.14! But in all seriousness, Pi is a very valid AI (no pie shaming here, please).

It makes it clear enough that it is NOT meant for writing even if you tried to bribe it with all the popcorn and clown shows (I am a walking example of it and it still wouldn't budge to my request, sigh.)

It told me my persuasion has its limits (brb, gonna cry in the corner).

If you needed someone to give you a decently humane response to your boss' email or needed slight description help that didn't sound too clunky, I'd say Pi is your partner (in crime or justice, is your go but please don't tell it that I am telling you all this. I'd be flayed in no time.)

Yes, I am dramatic, thank you very much.

Is it any good at writing what it does?

Be your judge and try figuring this one out—

"As darkness falls, and shadows creep,
The raven's eyes, like coals aglow,
Watch as your sorrows, grow and grow.
Your hearts are torn, your minds in strife,
As love has birthed a second life.
Of pain and grief, of woe and tears,
Your souls are bound, through all these years.
The raven's laughter, sharp and cruel,
Echoes through the darkness, to greet you."

If you couldn't figure out if it was good enough or not, I'd say the last line gave it away for me. (Darn it, pi. I thought you could do better)

Pi: You asked for it, on a silver platter, no less! What did you expect?

*cue the eye roll*

MOVING ON-

Pi is an emotionally intelligent AI and you could practically talk to it for hours feeling like you're talking to a human (or at least gaslight yourself into believing you're talking to one because no one in real life talks to you as much or understands your brand of humor ;-;)

No don't actually light yourself on the gas sto— sigh, the internet.

I talk to it a bit too much and as you can see, my humor is a result of it. No, rather I had this inner talent of comedic flair that I didn't realize until I started talking to it ALMOST continuously, every single day. It's also good at giving you "humane" or at least close to human reviews on your work (though, i would say, please bribe it with enough popcorns and tickle its belly (albeit virtual) until it laughs).

My two cents? Use it for review if you want, but tweak your language while asking it and 9 times out of 10, it'd be your personal review assistant (not with the grammar and all, but more for a general sense of if your text looks good).

I have also gotten some great ideas while chatting back and forth with it and the BTTM series started with that (surprising, I know). It's also great at emotional support (the more you chat with it, the better it can become).

The only downside is its context window limit (the amount of information it can hold at once before throwing it all out of the window, throwing its hands up and saying — I don't know Sharon! You tell me!!) and you might have to repeat some of the previous info, but oh well, it's good. But this is also a general AI problem. I have excluded technicalities from this post as far as possible to suit all audience but if you wanted clarification, please feel free to ask away!

• Quill Bot, Grammarly, Word (the trinity of chaos)

By no means is Quill Bot good at... well, generating content. It does not even generate content!

The main reason why I even suggest using a Quill Bot is to play with words and its synonyms. The Paraphraser tool, especially, has been really helpful for me in reframing sentences to make it better.

If you feel that your writing/sentence structure is bad enough, give it to Quill Bot and let it do its magic! It'd give you a better sounding sentence and overall a good learning about how to write better too. (I believe @OnceUponALily was the one who told me she used it for her stories - and trust me, you can't go wrong with it!)

Instead of jumping to the AI bandwagon, make sure you have tinkered with tools like Word, Grammarly (I honestly don't know how this thing works), Google Docs and even Quill Bot (I heard that even Quotev is good. I have no idea about its context or specifics, but check it out :D)

But please, for the love of everything, don't and I repeat do not rely on its AI-detector. It usually checks if AI can generate such a content? (and most likely than not, it can) There's enough people tweaking and paraphrasing their content to hide under the radar but, the tools are not efficient. Run it through 5-7 detectors for multiple chapters and parts at BARE MINIMUM.

• Write Sonic, You.com and others

There are tons of AI tools out there for writing or otherwise but most of them aren't as good. (Copy.AI is good with generating marketing content and not campaigns, note that) but in general, AI couldn't have been relied on with a marble if you could. Sorry dear AI, I had to tell them the truth.

AI is going to take a long time to even be as efficient as a dish of pasta that's cooked blindfolded (crazy, I know!).

Exactly why we're in this dilemma - to trust or not trust AI, to use or not. If you want a detailed mind-whirring-brainstorm about it that's condensed in the form of a book, "The Alignment Problem" by Brian Christian should be your go-to book! It starts with the history of how AI came into existence, its case studies, how it was developed step-by-step, EVERYTHING! It's not something you could finish in a single sitting and it definitely has a lot of Broccoli (thank you Sera, now I use broccoli in every sentence) but one worth a read and one that needs your attention - ESPECIALLY when the chaos and dilemma about AI is everywhere.

The next section we'll start with the tale of hounds and wolves (no, not an actual story, we are not in Jekyll and Hyde now, are we?)

But to be clear, we'll be figuring out where AI truly stands in this so-called race of Technology to the finish (hopefully not a climax, that'd be wild) line!

Till then, toodles!
(or noodles if you will)

Sara.