S/O the AI-written paper...how do you know when it's AI?

Oddly, there are AI-driven tools that teachers can use to determine whether the paper was written by AI.

But often a teacher can just tell. AI writing is often described as stilted. The paper may use vocabulary the student is unlikely to know, or turns of phrase that aren't typical for the age group.

Our state-appointed superintendent is having the curriculum department create many district learning materials using AI-generated passages and poems, and it's very obvious and awful.

Good question! I don't know that I'd know but I'm not a teacher.

When I heard about the story with the parents suing the district they were also talking about another story that a teach had given a writing assignment and flat out told the kids not to use AI. She had gone and used AI and then could compare to the student's work and something like 75% of them had at least used a portion of AI (and word for word, I mean, come on, change the language at least). And she gave every kid that used AI a zero on the assignment because they were explicitly told not to do it.

If you have read a student's previous work, you can tell what they did or did not write.

If you are not familiar with a student's writing style, AI has no style. It has no voice. It also does not have grammatical errors of any kind. It is very rare to have a student that does not make at least one mistake when writing.

Student AI example:
In the waters deep and wide,
Where colorful fish love to hide,
Darting through the ocean's blue,
Shimmering scales, a breathtaking view.

Swaying gently with the ocean's flow,
In a world where corals brightly glow,
Such graceful creatures, a sight to see,
In their liquid world, wild and free.

Silver tails and fins that gleam,
In the sunlight's golden beam,
A dance of beauty beneath the sea,
Where fish swim wild, wild and free.


I knew immediately it wasn't the author's work. Also, I have an add on for Google Docs that tells how long a student worked on the document. It shows copy and paste. It records exactly what they did. I can literally watch them copy and paste the text. This student denied at first and then admitted it.

A teacher ran a poem DD wrote in sophomore year through a generator to see if she used AI to write it. They couldn’t find anything but still accused DD of cheating somehow.
DD brought her book of poems in to show that her work was similar and she’s like yeah, it’s mine but thanks for running it through AI so now it’s stored somewhere in the internet abyss for someone else to lift in the future. She was soooo pissed! The school was practically falling all over themselves apologizing and wanted her to submit that and more work for a contest they have for poetry. She was like no thanks, my work is for me.
So after that she wrote the bare minimum just to get a passing grade and kept her really good work at home.
It’s a shame because she is a really good poet but didn’t want to share the good stuff.

I ask the students first to see what they say. If she said it was hers and brought in samples of her work, I would believe her. I let them decide if they want to confess before I check to see if it is AI.

I'm not a teacher, but I do know they have even free AI-detectors on line you can use. Plus, as mentioned above, in our district the kids use Google Docs for most assignments, and some teachers even ask the kids to also time themselves working, too.

But I will say, that when I have come across AI writing in different situations, it always just sounds "off" at best, and really bad at worst. I belong to a book club that uses a Discord server to chat, and we've had chats in the past about AI writing, and we tried to use AI to "write" a few passages based on the topic of conversation at the time, and some of the results are just "meh", but some were comically bad.

I've seen YouTubers use AI then share with viewers. And relatively recently Ebay started allowing sellers to use AI, and theirs is awful! It is also WRONG sometimes, which is a pain as a buyer. So now, if I have the choice between buying from a seller using AI and one who is not, I choose the one who is not.

One time, I knew the AI was wrong. I double checked with the seller, who swore, "Oh no, the listing is correct." Now, I *wanted* it to be wrong. It was for vintage cards and said they were blank inside, and I knew from my own knowledge of how those cards used to be that they absolutely were not blank. And the AI called them blank.

So I bought them, expecting them to have pre-printed messages, which they did, and I was happy. BUT, if I was a dishonest person, I could have absolutely contacted Ebay, informed them that the item I received was not as described, and gotten my money back. So, people putting their complete faith in the AI they use can get burned beyond just poor school grades. And that's a lesson kids need to realize about "the real world" outside of school, as well.

I hate what AI has done with photography!

Oh, me tooooo!! All the scenery photos posted in travel groups on FB look so fake and overdone! Why not just let the real photos speak for themselves? 

We use Google Classroom so everything they do is Google. They could write it elsewhere and copy and paste it into the Google Doc but that would show up on the Google Doc. I also look at Version History as well.

We've been instructed as faculty not to use the AI detectors (or, at least, not to accuse students based on the AI detectors, you can obviously do what you want) because they generate a lot of false positives. We're asked instead to design assignments that either make sensible use of the possibility people will use AI or are constructed in ways where AI won't help or can't be accessed.

So once again, teachers are being asked to solve a societal problem created by someone else. Nice.

I just heard an example of AI on a video, and one of the things that stood out to me was the repeated use of meaningless adverb pairs such as "almost probably" and "probably certainly".

My first Prompt to ChatGPT:
Write a message board post about how AI can be hard to detect but there are tools that can be used to detect students using Ai because AI doesn't sound like natural human writing. Give an example of how a teacher might be able to tell if AI was used on a paper.

I wanted to share some thoughts on the challenges of detecting AI-generated content in student assignments. As AI tools become more sophisticated, it can be tough to discern whether a paper was written by a student or generated by an AI. However, there are still some effective strategies and tools that can help us identify AI usage.

One key aspect to consider is the distinct style of AI-generated writing. While AI can produce coherent and well-structured text, it often lacks the nuances of natural human expression, such as personal anecdotes, emotional depth, and varied sentence structure. For instance, if a student submits an essay that is overly formal or consistently employs complex vocabulary without any personal touch, it may raise some red flags.

Example: Imagine a student writes an essay on the impact of climate change. If the paper is filled with factual information and sounds very polished but lacks any personal insights or experiences related to the topic, a teacher might suspect it was generated by AI. A human writer would likely incorporate personal reflections or specific examples that connect to their own life or community.

To help with detection, there are tools available that analyze writing styles and can flag submissions that appear to be AI-generated. These tools look for patterns in word choice, sentence structure, and overall coherence that might not align with a student's typical writing style.

While AI can be a useful tool for research and assistance, it's important for us as educators to encourage authentic expression in student writing. By being vigilant and utilizing available resources, we can help ensure that our students engage meaningfully with their assignments.




My revision---You said:
Write a casual message board post about how AI can be hard to detect but there are tools that can be used to detect students using Ai because AI doesn't sound like natural human writing. Give an example of how a teacher might be able to tell if AI was used on a paper. Make it sound very natural and like a high school student wrote it.
ChatGPT said:


So, I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole AI writing thing lately. It’s pretty wild how good these tools are getting, but it’s also kind of sketchy when it comes to schoolwork. Like, how can teachers even tell if we used AI to write our papers?

I read that AI can be super polished and structured, but it often lacks that personal touch we all have in our writing. For example, if someone writes an essay about their favorite book, you’d expect them to share personal thoughts or feelings, right? But if a paper just lists facts and sounds really formal, it’s a huge red flag.

Imagine a teacher reading a paper about a student’s experience with a summer job, and it’s all technical jargon without any personal stories. They’d probably think, “Wait a second, this doesn’t sound like them at all!”

There are actually tools out there that help teachers catch AI-generated content by analyzing writing styles. They look for patterns that don’t match a student’s usual work, which is pretty smart.

Anyway, just wanted to share my thoughts. Do you guys think teachers will start using these tools more often? What do you think about AI in school?



So, yeah.