Can you really check for AI-generated content?

No. But you can check for bad writing.

When AI hit the scene in 2023, nobody cared whether a blog was written by AI. If it was cheaper and it got the job done, where was the harm?

Then the questions started popping up. Was it ethical? Would it steal bread from the mouths of human writers and their families? Was it plagiarism? Was it accurate? Would Google penalize it?

It’s still a bit too early to tell if AI is taking a concrete crusher to the job of content writing. In a survey by content guru Jennifer Goforth Gregory, most writers said they’re earning more today than ever. And most are using AI tools to get more work done. Yet on LinkedIn, you’ll see story after story about writers losing their careers to AI. It does feel a lot like a pandemic.

Next, originality. Yes, AI-written content is plagiarism — or not — depending who you ask. One study found AI can “reuse words, sentences, and even core ideas.” Then again, “Since chatbots generate new text ... GAI could be considered more like ghost writing than plagiarism.” The bottom line is, AI learned to write by analyzing work by human writers. To which AI proponents answer, “So did you.”

What about accuracy? AI has a spotty record here. It can craft precise responses just as often as it can hallucinate. Most AI tools now come with a disclaimer like, “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info”

As to whether Google penalizes AI content — in a way. Google’s guidelines greenlight AI-generated copy. But it has to be “good.” In other words, it has to demonstrate expertise, experience, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T).

Therein lies the tale.

According to Google, the question isn’t whether an article was written by AI. The search giant says 10 years ago there was a glut of ghastly human-generated content. Their job back then was to separate the literary wheat from the electronic chaff. That’s still their job today.

And that’s where AI checkers come in.

Most content strategists will tell you AI checkers plain don’t work. For instance, here’s a screenshot from an online tool that flags a healthcare article as AI-generated.

The problem? The article was written by a human in 2021, when ChatGPT was just a gleam in OpenAI’s eye.

Google, “How do AI checkers work?” and you’ll find they’re AI-powered tools themselves. They compare massive numbers of AI-written samples to human-written samples. Through this training, they learn to “know it when they see it.”

So — what’s different about AI-generated text?

It’s generic.

The problem is the way AI is trained. Those millions of samples are kind of like looking at a million dogs, then sitting down with a charcoal pencil and a sheet of foolscap and drawing one generic Fido.

See the problem?

That’s not how humans work. They’re quirky. Obstinate. They draw on their unique experience. They don’t aggregate and genericize. Creative minds rebel against the commonplace. They learn the laws so they can break them. Twist them. Make them fresh.

It’s the very “sameness” of machine-made content that AI checkers learn to spot. They flag cookie-cutter writing that uses the same words, phrases, and cliches that “everybody else” does.

Put another way, AI checkers don’t call out the original or the iconoclastic. Content that bucks the status quo slips through their digital fingers.

That’s why, if you run 100 blog posts from 2020 through an AI checker, most will trip the AI-generated trigger. It’s not because some early AI model wrote them, but because they’re stiff and unoriginal. Google didn’t rank that kind of writing then, by humans, and it won’t rank it now, by AI writing tools.

So, yes, AI checkers work. But they don’t spot AI-generated content. They spot bad writing.

The solution is to put a human expert in the loop. Someone who can “twist the straight line,” to coin a phrase from comedy writing. Someone with a unique background, full of all the foibles of a human life. Someone who sees the world as no one else can. A living, breathing writer who doesn’t approximate and reduce, but who works to occupy the interesting edges around the fractal fringe of an idea. Someone who can show us something new. It’s that kind of writing that engages audiences. So far, only human writers know the way to make it tick.

Businesses hit AI like a tarpon on a jerkbait, as more than half of all companies struck the flashing lure of AI-generated content. AI use surged 47% to $66 billion. ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app in history. And 56% of users in a blind study said they liked AI-written articles better than their human-written counterparts.

Then flesh-and-blood reality came calling.

CNET was publicly lambasted for using AI to write a stream of plagiarism. The site lost credibility and sold for half its previous worth. Consumers shied away from openly AI-assisted publications, lamenting the loss of the human touch. Quality and accuracy issues reared their carping heads, and the term “AI slop” crashed the lexicon. Businesses have since called a collective takeback, fleeing AI-generated content use in droves. The flood tide of AI confidence has been followed by a matching ebb of digital regret.

So — is the party over for AI-written content?

Enter HITL — Human in the Loop.

With a human in the process, AI takes its rightful place in content creation — as a tool. Rather than leading the charge, it follows the direction of seasoned human content pros. In the same way that a hammer and a skilsaw can’t build a house without a contractor to wield them, a GPT can’t write an engaging thought-leadership article on risk management, or a traffic-getting blog on how to manage diabetes, without human help.

Only a human can make articles that resonate with humans. Why? Because only humans know what matters most to *us*.

What AI *can* do is make human writers faster and more effective. It can do lightning-fast research on the pain points around homeownership or retirement or PPOs, helping the writer to build empathy for the reader in minutes instead of hours. It can find and verify better sources.

Write suggested outlines. Draft paragraphs studded with the right keywords, worked into the text in natural ways. Verify accuracy. Call out omissions, missed opportunities, and awkward phrasings. And guided correctly, it can craft human-sounding content that engages us.

In other words, AI can help human writers do what they do better.

The rush to AI content as a low-cost panacea was a misstep. Today’s top businesses are course-correcting, putting human experts in the loop, and reaping the rewards in greater monthly traffic and conversions. With AI tools, living, breathing, feeling writers are creating written work with higher levels of accuracy and creativity, faster, at a lower cost. They’re reaching their potential in a way they never could before AI.

That’s why HITL isn’t just a new buzzword in AI-generated content. It’s the way forward.