Fake positives in AI detection tools, and the fear of being human.

[Matt4224]

I haven’t sumbitted my stories yet, but have a series i’m working on. I’ve seen a lot of posts from authors saying they didn’t use AI but got rejected for using it.

I took my stories, which are fully written by me (aside from Google Docs spellcheck) and put it in to some AI detectors to see what would happen. I get numbers like 0 to 3% AI, with a line or paragraph here or there highlighted. At the top it says “your text is human written.”

I tried some other sources out of curiosity in ZeroGPT. A few pages of:
Ready Player One by Earnest Cline: 15% AI generated.
1984 by George Orwell: 88.99% AI generated.

Of course there was no AI when these were written.

Now I’m paranoid, and also inclined to belive people who say they were rejected for AI when they wrote their own work. I feel like I have to reword my stories to ensure I get to 0% AI or I may be rejected. It’s taking a lot of the fun out of writing for me, as I don’t feel I can just express myself freely. I have to worry about what some machine is telling me about my work, go back and edit until it hits 0%. Some of my best paragraphs, I have deleted and made less impactful, just to remove any false positives.

I’m I being silly? Is there some benchmark I should be concerned about? Or should I just write and not worry about it?

 

[NotWise]

I haven’t sumbitted my stories yet, but have a series i’m working on. I’ve seen a lot of posts from authors saying they didn’t use AI but got rejected for using it.

I took my stories, which are fully written by me (aside from Google Docs spellcheck) and put it in to some AI detectors to see what would happen. I get numbers like 0 to 3% AI, with a line or paragraph here or there highlighted. At the top it says “your text is human written.”

I tried some other sources out of curiosity in ZeroGPT. A few pages of:
Ready Player One by Earnest Cline: 15% AI generated.
1984 by George Orwell: 88.99% AI generated.

Of course there was no AI when these were written.

Now I’m paranoid, and also inclined to belive people who say they were rejected for AI when they wrote their own work. I feel like I have to reword my stories to ensure I get to 0% AI or I may be rejected. It’s taking a lot of the fun out of writing for me, as I don’t feel I can just express myself freely. I have to worry about what some machine is telling me about my work, go back and edit until it hits 0%. Some of my best paragraphs, I have deleted and made less impactful, just to remove any false positives.

I’m I being silly? Is there some benchmark I should be concerned about? Or should I just write and not worry about it?

Don't use AI. Don't worry about it.

We here the rejections all the time, but while we know about the occasional rejection where the author claims no AI was involved, there are about 200 stories a day going through without trouble.

 

[StillStunned]

Nobody knows how Lit determines what might be written by AI. Given the huge number of submissions here every day, and the tales we hear that other story sites are being completely swamped, I think the occasional false positive that's reported here indicates that they've got it down.

So write what you want to write, in your own voice and style. Worry about a possible rejection when it happens, if ever. The only advice I'd give is to make sure your writing reads like fiction, not a business report. Other than that, who knows? Have fun writing and see how far you get.

 

[Paul_Chance]

You're over-thinking it. Just write your story and submit it. Roll the dice and play the game.

 

[NotWise]

I tried to reproduce your report that 1984 was qualified as AI. I took three different segments of the text from the Gutenburg copy and put them through three different detectors. They all registered as 100% human.

I tried with "For Whom the Bell Tolls," also using the Gutenburg text. I used three different sections of text from different parts of the story and put them through ZeroGPT. The results were 100% human in every case. Ernest would probably curse me for checking.

 

[SlightlyAnxious]

I recently had a story rejected for using AI. It's a false positive: ie I didn't use AI.

However, it's a bit hard to suggest one isn't using an app that has AI assistance these days. Word has CoPilot, Apple Pages has Apple Intelligence, and Grammarly is not uncommon. For years, many writing apps have been offering simple grammatical assistance for better sentence structure.

I worry about assistance-creep (my way to describe it). Now with AI so ingrained, does that make suggestions a risk? I think if it just addresses the sentence structure, like spelling, or missed punctuation, that seems ok. But what if it suggests your sentence is too informal? Or to sound more casual? Seems like a grey area to me, because the idea is still my own, but the influence may be impactful. Does that make it collaborative? This is where my discomfort lies.

BTW, when I got the rejection recently, I oscillated between "do you think it is that well written?," and, "wait, is my writing only as good as some AI?" I guess I didn't know what to think, except I didn't use one.

 

[SlightlyAnxious]

I tried to reproduce your report that 1984 was qualified as AI. I took three different segments of the text from the Gutenburg copy and put them through three different detectors. They all registered as 100% human.

I tried with "For Whom the Bell Tolls," also using the Gutenburg text. I used three different sections of text from different parts of the story and put them through ZeroGPT. The results were 100% human in every case. Ernest would probably curse me for checking.

Not curse you, more like beat you!

 

[StillStunned]

I worry about assistance-creep (my way to describe it). Now with AI so ingrained, does that make suggestions a risk? I think if it just addresses the sentence structure, like spelling, or missed punctuation, that seems ok. But what if it suggests your sentence is too informal? Or to sound more casual? Seems like a grey area to me, because the idea is still my own, but the influence may be impactful. Does that make it collaborative? This is where my discomfort lies.

The simple answer is to use only a spellchecker. Anything else interferes with your writing. Learn to have confidence in your command of English, use a text-to-speech program to proofread, and never let any software make any suggestions about how your writing should sound.. You're the only judge of that.

 

[MrPixel]

...Apple Pages has Apple Intelligence, ...

Oh. Hasn't bit me yet. On this alert, I checked settings. I had already unchecked everything "automatic," apparently out of recently-acquired habit.

I am becoming increasingly curmudgeonly about "software engineers who think they know more than I do," especially because I am a retired software engineer... manager. The arrogance in current product coming out of Silicon Gulch is palpable.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I had one rejected recently for suspected AI usage. I deleted it, and I'll review it at some point to see if I can find the offending passages. But it's made me money, so I'm not fussed if it doesn't go up here.

 

[Matt4224]

I tried to reproduce your report that 1984 was qualified as AI. I took three different segments of the text from the Gutenburg copy and put them through three different detectors. They all registered as 100% human.

I tried with "For Whom the Bell Tolls," also using the Gutenburg text. I used three different sections of text from different parts of the story and put them through ZeroGPT. The results were 100% human in every case. Ernest would probably curse me for checking.

I’m not doubting you. I grabbed another random segment from 1984 and got 72.22% AI Generated. Screenshot attached.

I just rewrote my first chapter, exactly the way I want it without worrying about the checker, it raised the score from 0% to 9.89%.

I'm writing directly in the Literotica interface. I then paste into google docs to do a spell check and paste it back in to Literotica. I don’t use any other writing aids.

I’m just going to take people’s advice and write my way. I can’t let the machines win.

 

[OddLove]

It might be rude and judgmental of me, but the more and more I see claims from people complaining how their story was rejected for AI despite never using AI, the more I'm starting to suspect that nearly all of them either used 'Grammarly' type software and allowed the AI-like software to restructure and rewrite their sentences, paragraphs, phrases, etc. Or they're just flat out lying about using AI in the first place.

But maybe one of my stories will get hit with it despite not using any software other then a classic word style software with a basic spellchecker, then I'll be the idiot on here making the same claims I currently ain't buying into.

There's just so much AI slop going on in the creative spaces that it's really easy to imagine tons of lazy and uninspired people looking to skip past the process of writing so they can get some kind of cheap and meaningless recognition for being writer, singer, musician, digital artist, etc. I see it everywhere. It's in all the YouTube thumbnails, it's flooding music streaming services like Spotify, it's completely corrupted deviantart... if it wasn't for the people on Lit working to keep it off the site, there would probably be two or three times more AI stories than human written ones.

If you're truly not using 'Grammarly' type programs, and all you're using is a basic spellchecker, I would guess that you'll be fine.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I'm writing directly in the Literotica interface. I then paste into google docs to do a spell check and paste it back in to Literotica. I don’t use any other writing aids..

Merciful Zeus, why?

 

[NuclearFairy]

Merciful Zeus, why?

Maybe cause they don't realize that Zeus isn't a very merciful god?

 

[Matt4224]

Merciful Zeus, why?

Specifically because it doesn’t have spellcheck or anything to disrupt me. It interrupts my flow. It’s nice that I can just hit “save draft” and have an online copy backup, but it’s also not something that’s going to annoy me with constant reminders that I spelled a word wrong, etc.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Specifically because it doesn’t have spellcheck or anything to disrupt me. It interrupts my flow. It’s nice that I can just hit “save draft” and have an online copy backup, but it’s also not something that’s going to annoy me with constant reminders that I spelled a word wrong, etc.

The browser is worse about those little squiggly lines than the document is. And it doesn't have an, "I know, I don't care, now go away." button. How did you get it to stop popping that up? Or worse yet, auto correcting.

 

[Matt4224]

It might be rude and judgmental of me, but the more and more I see claims from people complaining how their story was rejected for AI despite never using AI, the more I'm starting to suspect that nearly all of them either used 'Grammarly' type software and allowed the AI-like software to restructure and rewrite their sentences, paragraphs, phrases, etc. Or they're just flat out lying about using AI in the first place.

But maybe one of my stories will get hit with it despite not using any software other then a classic word style software with a basic spellchecker, then I'll be the idiot on here making the same claims I currently ain't buying into.

There's just so much AI slop going on in the creative spaces that it's really easy to imagine tons of lazy and uninspired people looking to skip past the process of writing so they can get some kind of cheap and meaningless recognition for being writer, singer, musician, digital artist, etc. I see it everywhere. It's in all the YouTube thumbnails, it's flooding music streaming services like Spotify, it's completely corrupted deviantart... if it wasn't for the people on Lit working to keep it off the site, there would probably be two or three times more AI stories than human written ones.

If you're truly not using 'Grammarly' type programs, and all you're using is a basic spellchecker, I would guess that you'll be fine.

Yeah I don’t want to use those tools to write. I’m really enjoying just letting my imagination flow. I haven’t written erotica before and I’m finding it to be extremely relaxing and a good way to get to know myself.

As I showed above, you can run classical works through AI detectors and get a very strong hit that it’s AI generated. You should try taking some of your own work, put it in ZeroGPT and see what you get. You may be suprised.

To be fair, the tool is making the decision that my writing is human generated. It’s just saying it has a small percentage of parts of it being AI generated.

Regardless, I had much more fun re-writing my chapter to be done my way, than I did trying to bend to the whims of ZeroGPT. That’s an insidious way to write.

 

[alohadave]

It’s nice that I can just hit “save draft” and have an online copy backup

That is not a secure copy, and everything you've typed can go away in an instant.

You can turn off spelling and grammar checkers if they bother you that much.

 

[Matt4224]

It might be rude and judgmental of me, but the more and more I see claims from people complaining how their story was rejected for AI despite never using AI, the more I'm starting to suspect that nearly all of them either used 'Grammarly' type software and allowed the AI-like software to restructure and rewrite their sentences, paragraphs, phrases, etc. Or they're just flat out lying about using AI in the first place.

But maybe one of my stories will get hit with it despite not using any software other then a classic word style software with a basic spellchecker, then I'll be the idiot on here making the same claims I currently ain't buying into.

There's just so much AI slop going on in the creative spaces that it's really easy to imagine tons of lazy and uninspired people looking to skip past the process of writing so they can get some kind of cheap and meaningless recognition for being writer, singer, musician, digital artist, etc. I see it everywhere. It's in all the YouTube thumbnails, it's flooding music streaming services like Spotify, it's completely corrupted deviantart... if it wasn't for the people on Lit working to keep it off the site, there would probably be two or three times more AI stories than human written ones.

If you're truly not using 'Grammarly' type programs, and all you're using is a basic spellchecker, I would guess that you'll be fine.

I hope you don’t mind. I ran your story, Chapter 1 “A kind and cruel dominatrix,” into ZeroGPT and got a 16.3% AI GPT score. This is much higher than I get for anything I’ve written, which makes me less concerned. You’re published, so I’m sure I’m fine. I’m just going to not worry about it.

 

[Matt4224]

That is not a secure copy, and everything you've typed can go away in an instant.

You can turn off spelling and grammar checkers if they bother you that much.

I didn’t realize that. I’ll do as you say. Thank you.

 

[AwkwardMD]

AI avatar? Check
AI to spot AI is crazy! Check
Ai checkers can't spot well-known human writing! Check

We are blowing through the red flags, and you haven’t even submitted anything yet. We're even adding new ones (pre-emptive paranoia about a rejection for AI).

 

[StillStunned]

I hope you don’t mind. I ran your story, Chapter 1 “A kind and cruel dominatrix,” into ZeroGPT and got a 16.3% AI GPT score. This is much higher than I get for anything I’ve written, which makes me less concerned. You’re published, so I’m sure I’m fine. I’m just going to not worry about it.

I can't speak for @OddLove, but I'd say the AI machines have stolen enough writings from around the internet without people feeding our stories into them deliberately.

 

[NotWise]

I’m not doubting you. I grabbed another random segment from 1984 and got 72.22% AI Generated. Screenshot attached.

I just rewrote my first chapter, exactly the way I want it without worrying about the checker, it raised the score from 0% to 9.89%.

I'm writing directly in the Literotica interface. I then paste into google docs to do a spell check and paste it back in to Literotica. I don’t use any other writing aids.

I’m just going to take people’s advice and write my way. I can’t let the machines win.

There's something clearly different in our results. I took a passage from Gutenberg similar to the clip you used and ending where yours ends, and got 100% human (attached). You're using ZeroGPT and I used GPTZero (screenshot below).

I tried the same thing in ZeroGPT, using nearly the same text you used and got 16.79% AI-generated. Who are they kidding with the decimal places? ZeroGPT gives clearly incorrect result, so you might consider whether you want to use it in the future.

 

[Matt4224]

AI avatar? Check
AI to spot AI is crazy! Check
Ai checkers can't spot well-known human writing! Check

We are blowing through the red flags, and you haven’t even submitted anything yet. We're even adding new ones (pre-emptive paranoia about a rejection for AI).

Think what you like, that’s fine.

Your story Digging a Hole returned 7.8%.

There's something clearly different in our results. I took a passage from Gutenberg similar to the clip you used and ending where yours ends, and got 100% human (attached). You're using ZeroGPT and I used GPTZero (screenshot below).

I tried the same thing in ZeroGPT, using nearly the same text you used and got 16.79% AI-generated. Who are they kidding with the decimal places? ZeroGPT gives clearly incorrect result, so you might consider whether you want to use it in the future.


View attachment 2560418

Thanks. I’m just going to ignore the checkers from now on. I ran some of the works of others through and they are all scoring higher suspected AI percentages than my work.

The good news is this thread did exactly what I wanted, which was give me an answer. Short story: Don’t worry about it, nothing is wrong.

Thank you for adding your perspective.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Has no problem feeding other people's content to AI? Check