I'm sick. Super sick for the past week, and today, slightly feverish with the kind of covid cough that is uncontrollable. Nope - not covid. But ever since I GOT covid in Feb 2020 for the first time, EVERY cold ends with that lung-filling covid cough that breaks your back.
Before I digress into rants about that...
Let me refocus.
I love writing. LOVE writing. I have thoroughly enjoyed spinning tales, coming up with surprise endings, COMPLETELY thrill engaging with my readers and feeding off their energy to tell stories. I'll often share that sometimes I get stuck, and I have to wait for my "characters to whisper in my ear" because I never like to force a story forward.
Today, I was procrastinating, but I sat here, feverish, sick, and in my bed spinning the part 4 of my serial that I was writing for Scholar and Scribe. Once I finally started, the story just flowed. I was having fun! I finished it up, read over it a few times, checked for mistakes, edited on my own (as usual) and posted. I sent it off to 4 people in DM - excited to get their reaction!
Now - English is my first language.
I've been studying writing since senior year in high school (that's literally 30 years ago.) I've published 7 books, and am currently writing the 8th. I NEVER EVER use any kind of online editing aid. I edit MYSELF - or- I'll ask friends to edit for me. I have NEVER used Grammarly or anything else. I have no problem with people who do - none at all. I'm stating this so that it takes any doubt out of the next thing I share.
As a joke, someone checked my story and sent me a message laughing and saying "woo hoo! you're 88% human!!"
Now, maybe some people think - yayyy, I pass the AI check! Good for me, cuz I am in fact a human writer!!
But I was FURIOUS.
88%?!?!?!?!
Wait. Stop. Read to me the sentences that were "flagged" as AI written??? Where in the WORLD are they getting TWELVE PERCENT AI????
Here was one of the AI sentences.
"He needed all the time he could get."
WHAT????
HOW is that somehow robot-created??? And I asked my friend - so WHAT is the suggestion?
The suggestion is to check it with an AI checker and then REWRITE the sentence differently.
So, let me get this straight. lol
An AI checker... wants me - a human - to put MY POST into THEIR checker. and then REWRITE my 100% human-written sentence into something else - so that the AI CHECKER can tell me that NOW i'm 100% human???
So .... how does AI write?
It copies humans, right?
So if my story, sounds like an AI that is trying to pattern itself after a human...
and that AI is COPYING humans in order to sound human...
then - how is my 100% human writing only 88% probability of being human?
I could see if it sounded complex, or excessively detailed, or somehow piecing together a lot of "grammarly suggested" options - because I've heard that when you DO use Grammarly, it WILL give you a higher chance of being read as AI-assisted, because in fact - you are!
But...
THAT is a red flag in your AI check???
My dear reader, YOU don't have to believe me that I wrote it as 100% me - and that I didn't get any editing help. I mean - I've been writing the same way for years, and though I'd like to hope that I've gotten better along the way, I think my style is pretty much always the same. AND THAT IS AOK with me!
But I'm just making a very plain statement here... a 12% error is a VERY high error for an AI check on something that is 100% human-written, and the only way to get higher - is to write... as the AI is telling me to!!!!
We went back and checked other posts that I've written and they are usually in the mid 90s % of being human. But that doesn't console me. Because we are in an era now where AI and these reports hold ALL the facts that people base their decisions on. I don't care about upvotes on Hive, but I care a GREAT deal about integrity. And it only takes a few 88% reports... or... lower??? to start making people look at you sideways, and wonder, and doubt. Does that change me? NO. But that just sucks. There is no way around that suckage. LOL
And before YOU start thinking, "hmmm well, I bet MY score is super high because I KNOW for a fact that I write all on my own..." lol think again. We ran some popular and well-known people here on Hive (and people that we would FIRMLY believe are writing 100% human-powered posts) through those same checkers and you might be surprised to see your own scores. Feel free to go check, and I really think that some community leaders might need to really really REALLY pause before making blanket decisions with these checkers.
Because my question was... what if I HAD used Grammarly?? How much LOWER would my score have been just because I had edited with AI-editing suggestions???
Also... I remember when AI first started being an issue months ago- and we were running our stuff through just for kicks - and getting 100% human scores, and laughing - ha ha. of course we're human! tra la laaaa!
Now that AI is around longer, its getting WORSE at detecting?? Does that seem right? Shouldn't it be able to detect these anomalies BETTER?? Or... is AI trying to be so human that it can't detect the difference between the real human and itself anymore?
I mean - the real question is..
Do I sound like AI?
or - Does AI sound like me?
What do you all think??? And don't tell me that 88% is still high and that I shouldn't worry. I used to get in MASSIVE trouble for bringing an 88% home on a test. LOL It's NOT high when I should have gotten a 100. It's 12 points off. That's SIGNIFICANT error.
Feel free to share your comments - but if you are a WELL-KNOWN plagiarizer - do not even dare to bring your justification to my comment section. I play nice, but I have no patience for cheaters.
and 96%??? where the hell is the missing 4% on THIS rant too!!
Wanna know what it said wasn't human?
- I've been studying writing since senior year in high school (that's literally 30 years ago.) I've published 7 books, and am currently writing the 8th.
so.... my PERSONAL, SPECIFIC, HUMAN STORY.... is being flagged for sounding un-human. And I'm being told by an AI checker - that I can rewrite that to sound more human.
Y'ALL. IF YOU COULD SEE THE LOOK ON MY FACE RIGHT NOW.
- AND IT FLAGGED ME SAYING "He needed all the time he could get." AGAIN. I mean - come on. That's... i mean.. at least its effing consistent!!!!
but you know what? in the ORIGINAL post, it flagged it as ALMOST CERTAIN AI. but in THIS post - its only possibly. ????
and this...
- "I mean - I've been writing the same way for years, and though I'd like to hope that I've gotten better along the way, I think my style is pretty much always the same."
Seriously. Read that, and tell me THAT doesn't sound 100% human. It's not even GOOD writing. It's emotional, and kinda run-on, and so HUMAN.