To be naffed off a robot is deciding if my work is ok

I think that the time has come to raise a formal grievance with the company administering the tests... They must have a process for this, so use it.

This is so shit! Sorry to hear this OP.

I really don't understand why you are wasting your time doing this. You have evidence that it is your own work. If they are (very unreasonably in my view) using AI detection software as their only detection method and call you in on it, I would simply inform them of the evidence you have that it is your own work and produce it. I would also ask them, what, other than the AI detection software, they are using as evidence as it is well known the software generates a high percentage of false positives.

I listed the evidence you should keep in my previous post. Make sure you have that and just get on with your day.

Just to reiterate, I am coming at this from the perspective of someone who deals with academic misconduct cases in the university I work in.

Semicolons are a perfectly normal part of punctuation. What's concerning is that writing skills have presumably deteriorated so much that it's assumed semicolons must be AI generated.

I submitted an academic application this week which contained a few emdashes in and quite possibly a semicolon or two. This thread has me worried!

I'm an academic and this is great advice. You could also show your browser history to show you have been accessing eg academic articles and have not been accessing gen ai sites.

I'm a bit concerned that the academic misconduct appeals process at your provider doesn't seem very robust. You should be offered a chance to put a response to these allegations. Do you have a students union you can involve? If not, I'd follow the academic complaints procedure and potentially involve the Office for Students.

We also do not use AI checkers as they are terrible. But I teach an essay based subject and the question of how we teach and assess extended writing in an age of AI is one we haven't solved yet.

AI is a nightmare for schools/universities and this is just further proof! You have my sympathy - what a waste of your time.

I have no idea whether this is the solution, but your writing in the screenshot you shared doesn’t sound very academic. As a PP has said, you use very short sentences and perhaps that’s reading as an AI summary. You use commas and complex sentences in your comments on here - can you try to do that more in your submitted work?

e.g. Ease of access to services is also important as early intervention and support can prevent problems from escalating.

Thing is, I use emdashes and semicolons all the time in my writing. And I have done so for years, long before ChatGPT and its AI littermates were even a twinkle in Silicon Valley's eye.

Ai detector is shit. Because everyone has slightly different writing styles. It leaves no room to be individual because if you don’t follow the “human” script it must be Ai.

Too blunt. AI. Too wishy washy. Al. Over excited. Ai. Too robot like trying to avoid the above. Ai.

Is it possible in these instances to write a note at the end along the lines of I confirm this is 100% human created (myself), no AI involvement. Or does it just get automatically spewed out and rejected by (ironically) AI and not a human.

Yes, I don't *want to put a hyphen in, I just type the hyphen as it's easier to find on my keyboard and then it autocorrects to m dash

I was just pointing out that I'm not choosing the m dash (although I do want it!) and I didn't want people to think I am a bot!

I realise this isn't the only thing, just... It's correct use of punctuation isn't it.

Why Is My Own Writing Detected as AI? 9 Fixes That Actually Help

The link above has some useful information.

Incidentally, I do a little work for a company that uses AI to generate feedback to send to learners. We include, in the learners' feedback, a warning about using AI. :(

@DontBuyANewMumCashmere You’re probably fine as it’s likely changing to an n-dash, rather than an em-dash (unless you have a particular setting or are possibly using a US version of Word). The em-dash is a standard American dash and has become a ‘tell’ (using inverted commas here because it’s not actually a tell) simply because many generative AI programs use US English.

For reference, there are three standard types of dash:
Hyphen -
En-dash –
Em-dash —

Examples:
by-product (hyphen)
3–4 (en-dash)
the cat – the black one – was ill (en-dash; British English usage)
the cat — the black one — was ill / the cat—the black one—was ill (em-dash; US English usage)

That shouldn't happen if it's set up to accept multiple submissions.

That’s such a pain. I ran soemthing through an AI checker recently as I had used AI but didn’t want it to sound like I had, it passed almost the whole thing and the only thing it picked up as AI was one of the few things I had written entirely myself?!

A bit worrying these will be used in educational settings.

If you keep submitting the same document, or versions of the same document, it will be flagged for plagiarism (as well as AI). AI detection software is notoriously unreliable and my university does not use it. I think most places are heading back to in-person exams, in a traditional examination hall.

I was thinking similar, but along the lines of old style word processors. I can see a market developing for this "retro" stuff.

My handwriting is terrible.

Honestly the obvious answer is a return to hand-written in person invigilated exams.

Most universities no longer allow the use of AI detection software as it is so unreliable. It is also biased against certain types of writing. There have been successful court cases taken against universities in other countries where students were wrongly accussed.

I deal with academic misconduct in my university. Firstly, I would say do not change your writing style. Do not put it through GenAI in order to dumb it down. What you need to do is keep evidence that it is your own work. So keep your notes. Any academic sources you have used should be downloaded as you are using them so you can point to it on your laptop. Alternatively, keep the history on your browser so you can show you read it on a certain date. Use Word on OneDrive or similar where you will get version control so you can show the different versions of your assignment as you worked through it.

I would also strongly suggest contacting the student union and asking them what they are doing to ensure the university is not falsely accusing students by relying on the AI detection software as a sole method of assessing use of GenAI. Tbh, I would say it should not be used at all.

Edited to say - I would also ask the tutor what evidence they have to suggest use of GenAi and remind them that the detectors are notoriously inaccurate.

I think we are at the point where text files need an EXIF style data embedded part, same as digital photos.

But of course, one can get EXIF editors. So maybe not.

I think for sure though there needs to be some identifier with AI output that machines can detect. And really, AI companies should be pushing for it themselves, because of AI degradation.

AI degradation is the theory that is AI uses AI to "learn", then it is will start to incorporate all the AI "hallucinations" and errors into itself. The theory is gaining traction.

A bit like inbreeding I think, for want of a better example. Where people with the same DNA issues have kids, and the DNA issues match up and things get worse.

Are you sure you aren’t AI OP, maybe you aren’t self aware yet 🤷‍♀️

I wonder if a more "old fashioned" word processor will help. I use Libreoffice, because it is totally free, safe, and it's sort of more old fashioned I suppose. More manual, which I like. And it free of course, which matters for me.