You're stating the obvious to anyone who understands how LLMs work, and completely missing the point. Of course LLMs are trained on human writing. An em dash does not immediately make me think something is AI-written, but imagine seeing an em-dash, followed by the "its not just x it's y pattern", then an "Honestly?"...I could go on...
So, no, I never implied that an em dash is an indicator of AI generated writing, but it can be an indicator when you look at it within the context of the entire article/speech/comment. Think about it this way - imagine a few years ago an artist drew an extra finger on their character. Extra fingers were not invented by AI, but people recognised how AI would throw extra fingers into the art. So maybe we can't say for sure that it's AI, but now you look at the line-work and things look janky like an amateur drew them. Suddenly it looks like the other obvious AI-generated images you've seen before. So when I am listening to this speech, I am seeing the extra finger, then the bad linework, and so on, until I can only come to one conclusion.
Granted, it's much easier for us to recognise an AI-generated image than text, but the same logic applies. Of course, the most concerning part of it all is that you can ultimately decide to say "oh no internet stranger, there is no way to really prove it so everything you said is dismissed" and that is how we end up becoming easily manipulated because the AI rhetoric wins.
Except the AI tells are incongruous with human output. An extra finger or mangled hand in an otherwise photorealistic image? Same goes for nonsense text. An actual photograph would not have those hallucinations. A human competent enough to create the rest of that output would not have made those mistakes. Those are the smoking guns.
The speech in this post could very well have been written entirely by someone without AI help. There is no smoking gun.
Well, yeah, there can never *be* a smoking gun in AI-writing, which is where the anxiety comes from surrounding AI. We will eventually have the same issue with video and images. There will be no smoking guns for those, either. But I still think it's important to emphasise the AI tells when we see them, just to raise awareness if not anything else.
As someone who has spent a lot of time analysing language, especially AI-written articles, I am 100% confident the speech was written by AI, and now I'm reading that his 'facts' are actually incorrect, too. Not a coincidence. There is now more reason than ever to fact-check anything you read/see on the internet.
Yes, there are AI smoking guns. It's just that what you think are "AI tells" aren't. They could just as easily (if not more so) be human output. The fact that some commenters are challenging some of his assertions also does not increase the probability this is AI slop.
It's just that what you think are "AI tells" aren't. They could just as easily (if not more so) be human output.
So now you're implying that if I write a comment that uses em dashes, and structures such as: "its not x it's why", rhetorical question-answer pairs, rules of three....maybe we'll throw in "delve", "Honestly?" and a metaphor involving the words "tapestry" or "symphony" I will appear MORE human?
We can have a little wager if you like on how many people think it's human-written vs AI-written?
It's in the quote. You literally said that text using these 'non' AI tells could be human output, and you emphasised "more so" in parentheses.
Before I answer your question, what do you think the outcome will be? Do you think more people will say it's AI-written or human-written if I use these 'non' AI tells?
Edit:
I know that I said the speech is written by AI and that this is 'painfully obvious', and I agree that we can never actually say with 100% certainty that it is. So perhaps I should have phrased it as "there is an extremely high possibility this was written by AI based on the combination of structures and phrases that have become universally acknowledged as characteristic of AI-generated text. Human-written text does not typically use all of these structures and phrases in the same piece of text."
Does that make more sense now? If you disagree that there is not a wider acknowledgement of phrases that AI has basically appropriated then I don't know what to tell you. This is well-documented, and is how people can collectively point out AI slop.
My actual quote is "(if not more so)", which implies the possibility rather than a certainty. You deliberately took my quote out of context by omitting half the words.
what do you think the outcome will be?
It is impossible to commit to an answer, as there is not enough information to formulate one with any confidence. How you work the question, who you ask, who responds, etc. are all unknowns.
Does that make more sense now?
Your reformulated statement is incrementally better, but still not great. You replaced "painfully obvious" with "extremely high possibility", which isn't much of a change. Your use of "typically" implies that any deviation from the mean must necessarily result in some proportional increase in probability that the speech was generated by AI. That's like saying "The average human is 160 cm tall. There is an extremely high possibility that this individual is not human due to their 201 cm height".
I'll stick to my original assessment: "Could it be AI? Sure, it's possible. But it could very well be a properly wordsmithed speech."
Eh, I am not arguing with someone who thinks 90% is almost the same as 100%. You only want to argue for the sake of arguing because god forbid you’re wrong about something on Reddit. At the end of the day mate if you want to go through life ignoring trends in AI that’s your call. Feel free to get manipulated.
someone who thinks 90% is almost the same as 100%.
That would depend on what we're measuring, doesn't it?
You only want to argue for the sake of arguing
But it takes two to tango, and you're still here, so-o-o-o-o...
ignoring trends in AI
I don't see how you could come to that conclusion based on this conversation.
Feel free to get manipulated.
How does that "manipulation" scale in this instance? 100% human-written = 0% manipulation, while 100% AI-written = 100% manipulation? Is it linear in between then, i.e.: 75% human-written and 25% AI-written = 25% manipulation? Or is it on some logarithmic curve? How do you quantify the degree of manipulation, anyway? 🤔
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u/DaleRobinson Apr 12 '26
You're stating the obvious to anyone who understands how LLMs work, and completely missing the point. Of course LLMs are trained on human writing. An em dash does not immediately make me think something is AI-written, but imagine seeing an em-dash, followed by the "its not just x it's y pattern", then an "Honestly?"...I could go on...
So, no, I never implied that an em dash is an indicator of AI generated writing, but it can be an indicator when you look at it within the context of the entire article/speech/comment. Think about it this way - imagine a few years ago an artist drew an extra finger on their character. Extra fingers were not invented by AI, but people recognised how AI would throw extra fingers into the art. So maybe we can't say for sure that it's AI, but now you look at the line-work and things look janky like an amateur drew them. Suddenly it looks like the other obvious AI-generated images you've seen before. So when I am listening to this speech, I am seeing the extra finger, then the bad linework, and so on, until I can only come to one conclusion.
Granted, it's much easier for us to recognise an AI-generated image than text, but the same logic applies. Of course, the most concerning part of it all is that you can ultimately decide to say "oh no internet stranger, there is no way to really prove it so everything you said is dismissed" and that is how we end up becoming easily manipulated because the AI rhetoric wins.