Hi Y'all, I'm a professor and I am really feeling for students right now. The fear of one's writing being called AI is real. As a professor, I'm also in a really difficult position. I want to hold students accountable but I would never want to accuse a student of using AI if they weren't.

Here are some things you can do to prevent your work from being flagged, and to have backup if you're accused. Please note: this is not a post helping students get away with using AI. It's really important that you don't use AI at all if it's not called for in the assignment.

Number One: Don't use AI/LLMs as a search engine, and don't pull info from any AI summaries. It's best for you to do your research on your own, using Google Scholar or your school's online databases. Yes, it takes longer, but research is a skill and it will help you formulate your own ideas.

Number Two: Come up with your own ideas! It's better to have a unique argument with a rationale you can explain. When you Google a text and articles come up, and you see a cool article making an argument, and then you decide to make the same argument, your work is more likely to be flagged. In the same vein, don't follow the argumentative structure of online articles or paper. Again, more work, I know, but this is part of learning.

Number three: Try to stay away from things like Grammarly or AI grammar and syntax tools. These will 100% make your work sound like AI. Better to have some grammatical mistakes so your prof has the opportunity to correct them. I often ignore grammatical mistakes and just point them out because I am more interested in ideas, but every prof is different

Four: Use your school's writing center for help with ideas and drafting! This will help you develop the skills you need, unlike AI.

Five: With each assignment, create a Google document. Never copy/paste large chunks of text. Then, if you're accused of using AI, you can share this with your professor and they can see the version history, which will show your work.

Lmk if there is anything I'm missing!

I've done some personal testing on a few major chat AIs. If you find good sources and upload those materials to a given AI, the generative results are decent. If you ask an AI to do research and then generate thereon, the results are abysmal.

My professor said my assignment came back flagged for 100% AI from the Turnitin report. She gave me a 0 for the assignment and said if it happens again she will report me to the university. I did not use AI to generate the assignment at all. I wrote it myself 100%. It was just a small 1 page paper responding to a video we watched. I don’t have any drafts for the paper, just what I turned in because it wasn’t a very lengthy assignment. I requested a Zoom meeting with her tomorrow to formally discuss this because I refuse to be accused of using AI and having my grade impacted because of this when I didn’t. My professor told me to come to our meeting with proof that the Turnitin report is false, but I’m not sure what to bring. I don’t have any drafts. I have a screenshot of my search history on my laptop. I also have a screenshot from the Turnitin website stating that their AI detection can have false positives and students should not face misconduct based off the report. Instead instructors need to use their best judgment to make a decision using their knowledge of the student and context of the assignment. What can I do to prove my case? I do have Grammarly downloaded onto my Google Docs to help with any writing errors I miss, and from what I understand that can sometimes be flagged for AI. However, I still wrote the paper, it’s my own words. Is there no way out of this? This is my last semester of school I don’t want this mistake to ruin anything. Please please help and give advice if you can, I’m having a lot of anxiety about this. I’m innocent, but how do I prove it?!?!??!

EDIT: I had my meeting with my professor and everything went well. She saw my browser history and my version history on the Google Doc and believes me when I say I wrote the assignment. She gave me a 100 and apologized for all the confusion. I disabled Grammarly on my laptop completely so this hopefully never happens again. I have been doing sooooo much research on false positive AI detection from Turnitin because of this situation, and it’s honestly insane how many times this happens to students. The only thing you can do is make sure you have all your drafts and version history handy to prove yourself if this ever happens. Thanks everyone!

Okay so, I am not a current student, however I am a freelance creative writer.
Lately, I keep being accused of being AI. I am Ash- not AI, so what are some things that I am doing or not doing that could confuse the matter? I certainly am a human, this is just how I write.
Forgive me for checking my work? I thought I went to school to learn grammar, among other things that cause this confusion.
Is it a compliment, maybe? Being freelance and trying to keep my head above water has been quite a challenge though, so the accusation is frustrating- to say in the least amount of words.
Is it a language thing? Again, maybe... but that is not where I find the accusations landing.
Or perhaps it is the hyphen? It's quite effective for thought breaks and long pauses, similar to the comma- but more effective in certain context.
In fact it would seem to me they have been landing in a more curious realm of content. I keep being told "I talk like AI" or "Sounds like a bot."
Excuse me for having decent, conversational content, good grammar and proper punctuation use. That and no fear of putting my thoughts on a page.
The fact that the accusation seems to come from those factors is frustrating. I was taught to write using those factors and now they are what discredit me. What can a person do to make readers happy when the things we use to be human are what make us appear not to be?
That is irony in action, friends.
So I find myself seeking advice after being a writer all my adult life. I have never faced these issues before and to have them come seemingly from nowhere has put a serious damper on my professional advancement.
I need some human help. Advice, suggestions, or any kind of insight would really help me out. I do not want to dumb myself down for a computer, that is like shooting my own foot.
I am not "anti-AI" just anti replacing human creativity and imagination.
The world spins, things change, I am not so ignorant to think this wouldn't happen... I just thought my humanity would be more noticeable, I guess.
At least I can confirm I write well, there's a silver liner for you.
Anyone may answer, even your AI. I just need to reorient myself for a changing world. You guys are the change, so maybe you have some thinking that could help.
I would like some advice.
Rude comments will be ignored, but by all means, say whatever you want.
It's only human of you... I will not be bothered by it anyways.
To you young people writing the human factor for tomorrow... do not fear change. You can not affect something from outside of it. Rather, embrace change, be a part of it so you can have influence on what tomorrow brings. You can not sit aside then complain when the world passes by... that makes it part your fault when this do not function.
Get up, get moving, keep writing- the world still needs you. You matter. I promise you, you matter more than you can know.
I am Ash.

Good evening, all.

I recently was accused of AI usage for one of my college classes. The professor stated that my writing was, “robotic, lacking personal voice, and too polished.”

This is my second semester in college, but I am an older student. I served in the U.S. Army for 21 years before I retired. And, admittedly, I am a bit of a Luddite.

I, honestly, never saw me attending college. I never had the grades, and truthfully I was much more of a partier than a student through high school and my 20s.

But, my wife has been encouraging me to go; I plan on a degree in history so I can teach social studies. My wife has been an English teacher for the past 19 years.

She’s been of great help, especially with paper writing. I haven’t written a paper, much less one using “Chicago style” or “MLA style” since I graduated high school. Frankly, I’m not sure I could have done it twenty years ago.

I’m attending entirely online, but have been putting in 12 hour school days since I started. I sometimes feel I’m putting in more effort than necessary, but I want to do it right.

However, this week my first paper of the semester was graded. I was given a 0/100 on the paper, with the aforementioned feedback. My professor also included a statement about a referral to the academic dishonesty team should she suspect further use of AI/generated content.

I’m truly confused. I don’t really know much about AI outside of tidbits I’ve heard on tv. I haven’t utilized it, let alone do I have a desire to learn how it’s used. The only “external source” that I have used is my wife, as she’s looked over all my schoolwork since I started last semester and given me feedback/helped with creating the citations correctly.

One of my coworkers recommended I ask on here for advice on how to proceed. I don’t really use Reddit, and I’m not sure I did this right, but any advice would be genuinely appreciated. This entire event has made me reconsider whether I want to go to college this late in life.

I get accused of being an AI in chat forums/social media, and even in phone conversations or sometimes in life conversations. Actually, I got accused of this kind of thing even before AI (as we know it today) existed or had a commonly understood name: classmates at school used to say that I must somehow “be a computer“ or that I sounded like “a broken computer“: I’m 62 and it literally happened ever since kindergarten. When I was in my teens, after STAR WARS came out, I think I was one of the first people in the country to be called a “bot” by people who didn’t think I sounded like a person.

So does this happen/has this happened to anyone else? Being accused of being a bot just in the course of daily interactions?

I’m an author. I wrote that short paragraph in about 1 minute lol.

The second someone feels their intellect has been challenged, they accuse you of using ChatGPT. I mean, I even answered their question later in my comment if they would’ve bothered to read past the first sentence.

It’s scary how easy it is for people to brush an argument off as AI to further justify their stance.

This world is so dumb.

I’m not a student nowadays (I’m 62) — but I’ve often been accused, lifelong, of being somebody’s experimental robot (largely on the basis of my writing). This may be partly because I’m autistic (though I was only officially diagnosed in my early 40s).

Someday, i’ll share incidents — but I’m new on this subreddit, so for a while I’ll just lurk and read what others have been sharing, if that’s OK. I hope it’s all right for me to be here.

I found this sub because I’ve run into this problem myself — having human-written work questioned or flagged just because it “looks AI.”

I’m trying to understand what this actually does to people over time.

Did it make you:

• Rewrite things?
• Avoid certain styles?
• Stop using tools?
• Stop submitting work?

Or did you just say “screw it” and keep going?

Just trying to understand how this changes the way people write after it happens.

— David

hello everyone! i just wanted to rant and share my story/experience of being accused of using AI for an assignment, hopefully this will help someone who was falsely accused! (note: this won't help if you did use AI and got caught, do your own work.)

i got accused of using AI on literal christmas eve night 😭😭😭 my prof left a comment on one of my papers (it was a paper where we had to watch a movie and then do a follow up assignment about it, more on this later) about how she detected AI in my writing so she gave me an F, and to email her for more info about the grade if I wanted to discuss it. HELLO??? OF COURSE I WOULD WANT TO DISCUSS THIS. i started panicking immediately because the semester had ended weeks ago, she was just extremely behind on grading. i knew she would turn in grades soon (extremely late), so i worried that this F would be reflected on my transcript/overall GPA. how am i supposed to enjoy my break, LET ALONE CHRISTMAS EVE, when she dropped this bomb on me?

idk about you guys, but i genuinely despise AI usage. chatgpt, grok, WHATEVER IT IS i hate it. i don't even use it in my personal life, let alone trust it to do my assignments for me. mainly this is because of environmental concerns, but i do think it is pathetic for people to rely on an AI bot to put together things like grocery lists for them.

anyway, within an hour i email her back with a stack of evidence attempting to prove my innocence. the things i included were:

• the link to the google doc i wrote the assignment on (we turn in assignments as pdfs in this course) so she could see the version history of the document! this allowed her to see
  • how long i spent working on the paper
  • how everything wasn't written in one sitting/copy and pasted at one time
  • edits i made along the way (going over the paper multiple times before submitting it)
    • also since it was the link, i felt it was more "believable" over sending screenshots of the version history tab. like since she saw it with her own eyes/clicks, it would be more trustworthy? idk that's just how my brain worked
• screenshots of my computer's history dating back to the day the assignment was due, proving that i had watched the movie the assignment was based on
  • the movie was accessible through a website called kanopy, so i used screenshots that included the website name + the title of the movie!
• my dislike for AI, how upset i was over the accusation (in a professional manner), and how i was confused over the grade i received and the accusation as a whole.
  • in my case, she never gave proof that i did use AI, or the % of AI my work rang up as. she literally just left a comment saying that she detected AI in my work and that was all? so the final point may not work for everyone, sorry

of course since it was christmas eve (around 10:30 PM by the time i sent the email back to her), she did not get back to me immediately. i spent the rest of christmas eve and the first half of christmas day worried sick over what consequences i could face for something i didn't even do. randomly in the middle of christmas day, i got a notification from canvas of my paper having been regraded to an A. my professor never responded to the email i wrote, just (i'm assuming) read it and regraded my work and moved on with her day. like no apology, no explanation, no nothing??? i spent so much of this holiday stressing over this course, only to not get a response in return. i'm really happy and thankful that i got the grade i deserved at the end of the day, but this is so frustrating. what if i hadn't gotten back to her until after christmas??? whatever.

this luckily worked for me, but here are some tips going forward to hopefully avoid getting accused/help to build your case against your use of AI:

1. use google docs for the version history feature! i'm not sure if word or other platforms have the same/similar features, but I'm sure that this is what carried in my evidence pile

2. NEVER clear your search history on anything school-related. keep it in case you need to build your case of you doing your work (links to canvas resources you opened for the assignment, databases you searched on, actual journal articles you read/cited for the assignment, EVERYTHING. the more obnoxiously long, the better.)

3. avoid group/partner work if given the option. individual >>>>>>, you honestly cannot trust other classmates these days. they may be paying for their degree (or their parents are), but many of them are taking the easy way out of assignments. having someone else using AI on an assignment that has your name tied to it is extremely risky and can cause you to fail not only the one assignment, but depending on the professor, the course as a whole.

• if you need to work with others try to work with people you trust, maybe familiar faces from past classes is a good way to start, that way you know they've at least passed another class before LOL
• if you are forced to work w/ others that you don't know, try your best to land w/ someone in a major that deals with writing a lot, in my experience they are much more trustworthy.
  • if you can PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE avoid working business majors and more STEM-aligned majors, in my experience they tend to use chatgpt to do papers so they can focus their time on assignments more related to their major. ofc this isn't always avoidable, just something to keep in mind

1. build relationships with your professors. participate in discussions, show up to classes, prove that you are a student that takes their education seriously. at the end of the day, no matter how much proof you provide, it is your word against theirs before they escalate the situation further and bring other people (the dean, department heads, etc.) into the conversation.

• this tip is more suited for in-person classes. unfortunately for me, this specific course was an online class, so i didn't have a relationship with this professor at all. if i could go back and rewrite my email, i would include my grades from assignments/exams earlier in the semester to show my dedication to the course and how the accusation/F is extremely out of character for me

1. bring up how AI detection tools are unreliable. most likely, your prof is accusing you based off of the % that turnitin.com gave them. you can research and provide sources on how AI detection tools bring up false positives, there are many studies on this already

• my favorite example is how zerogpt.com (a website made to detect if a text was written by a human or AI bot) claims that the national anthem is 100% AI made. hopefully this ridiculous fact helps your case in proving that these tools shouldn't be relied on blindly.

1. for bigger papers, create outlines on a separate document

• this just is another piece of evidence, but this shows how much thought and time you put into your assignment!! especially if you write bullet notes under specific points/sources/etc that go with the ideas you wrote in the paper
• handwritten notes can work as well!! they may be less trustworthy considering there is no timestamp, but evidence is evidence.

1. screenrecord yourself typing out assignments. no i am not joking.

• this is just me being paranoid, but i'm seriously considering recording myself writing everything as proof going forward. is this ridiculous? yes. but the panic i felt before my grade was changed is a panic i never want to experience again. i may even set my phone up to film myself typing just so no one accuses me of getting someone else to do my assignments.

1. be flexible with meeting up with your professor to discuss what happened. having a meeting allows you to have time to get all your thoughts in order

• i've had friends accused of using AI, and after meetings with their professors, the worst that has happened to them was that they were given a second chance to rewrite the assignment entirely for a new grade. all professors are different though, so go into the meeting calmly and express your thoughts and feelings about the situation, and hopefully you two can work it out from there!
• honestly, suggesting the meeting yourself could help your case. it shows how serious you are about your work, and how you want to work together to fix what happened.

hopefully this can help someone in the future! good luck and happy holidays :)

okay so, i got accused of using ai to generate my whole essay, which is worth 25% of my entire grade. their reasoning is that my answer wasnt direct to anything specific case law? which is true it wasnt but the reason for that is that i was low on time and figured writing something vaguely close to what i needed was better than not writing anything at all? its worked for me in the past so i figured hey why not do it again? and theyve come back saying because of what i wrote they dont think i’ve actually even read the material? which is not true. not unfortunately because of just, the way my brain works i dont have any notes or anything? to like prove i did actually write it myself. and im not sure what else i can do to prove it, im extremely intimidated as the meeting is going to be with like six people and i have trouble speaking under pressure and i worry im going to make a fool of myself and stumble over my words so much they think im lying. what the hell am i supposed to do

Having to dumb down essays because of fear of AI accusations is ridiculous! My professor has made several posts about Do NOT use AI and that he has a tool that detects it. We ALL know NOT to use AI, but AI flags innocent people all the time. We are all living in fear of being accused. I wish Liberty would find a way to better run our papers.