Artificial intelligence-generated writing is becoming harder to identify as chatbots continue to change the way they produce text.
The study found that there is no single word or writing habit that can prove a text was written by AI. Different chatbots have different writing styles, and those styles can change after software updates.
Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok are now being used to write emails, social media posts, essays, news stories and even research papers. The study found that there is no single word or writing habit that can prove a text was written by AI. Different chatbots have different writing styles, and those styles can change after software updates. To find common patterns, The Economist asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok to rewrite some of its articles. The chatbots were not allowed to search the internet. They were given AI-made summaries of the articles as prompts. Many believe that using too many em-dashes is a sign of AI writing. But the study found that this is no longer a good way to spot AI text. After recent updates, only Claude used em-dashes more often than human writers. ChatGPT used them less than the other writers in the study. In addition to this, AI-written sentences are usually longer. Chatbots also often use the same sentence patterns to make their writing sound interesting. ChatGPT and Claude used these patterns more often than the other AI models and human writers studied. It has also partnered with blogging platform Substack. But AI detectors can sometimes get it wrong. They may mark human writing as AI-generated and usually do not explain exactly why they reached their conclusion.
Pangram, one such company, claims its system is 99.98% accurate.
One estimate cited by The Economist said AI was being used to create more than a third of new websites. One example is the “not X but Y” structure. They also often use “not only… but also” and groups of three points.
