When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, there was instant buzz about its utility for writers — in just a few seconds, ChatGPT could output content that would take a human writer much longer to create. However, despite this obvious benefit, AI-generated content has a glaring drawback. Since ChatGPT and other LLMs train on massive datasets, their outputs are derivative of already-existing content and run the risk of inadvertently plagiarizing someone else’s work. AI-powered plagiarism is a growing concern in this digital age, and it’s critical that any outlet publishing work that could be AI-generated prevents this potential pitfall and protects their business.
The rise and challenges of AI-powered content creation
The accessibility of AI tools has enabled people to generate text, code and other content more quickly and easily than ever, presenting seemingly limitless use cases. Unfortunately, not all of those use cases are legitimate — bad actors can misuse this technology for dishonest purposes, such as plagiarizing in an academic setting. Cheaters don’t even have to copy/paste from Wikipedia into their essays anymore. They just type the right prompt into an LLM and instantly have a complete essay without any of the critical thinking required to produce it.
Recent advancements in language models and the resulting capability enhancements have resulted in content that seems human-written, but these advancements have also made it increasingly difficult to detect whether content was actually created by a person. Traditional plagiarism detection methods have limited ability to distinguish between AI-generated content and human-written work. This means AI-powered plagiarists can evade detection, creating a host of new challenges for publishers seeking original, human-written content.
One of the biggest threats posed by AI is the potential stagnation of creativity. If everyone is using AI to generate content, the individual voices and viewpoints that make writing unique and engaging will be lost, replaced by bland, homogenous writing. An over-reliance on AI can lead to unintentional conformity that is, in a word, boring. And no one wants to read boring writing! Ensuring content is human-centric is crucial to preserving captivating, fresh perspectives that draw people in and keep them coming back.
Strategies for preventing AI-powered plagiarism
The goal is simple — only publish truly original content actually written by a person. However, the means to that end can get a bit complicated. To help with this dilemma, here are some tips to demystify the detection process and safeguard originality:
- Fight AI with AI. The rise of AI-powered plagiarism has catalyzed the development of AI-powered tools to help aid in the detection of AI-generated writing. These sophisticated algorithms analyze a piece of writing to produce a probability score of that content’s most likely origin. However, AI content detectors’ probability scores run the risk of producing false positives (or false negatives!), so consider leveraging more than one checker to get the most accurate likelihood of where content came from.
- Implement a system of checks and balances. Determining the origin of content takes robust authentication methods that don’t rely on a single source of truth but rather a collaboration between AI content detection tools and human intuition. While an individual content checker alone isn’t enough to accurately determine content’s origin, nor is one individual’s opinion, leveraging the results of several checkers along with uniquely human “gut feelings” offers a big-picture view to help teams come to the most accurate conclusions.
- Raise awareness through education. It’s hard to fight an enemy you don’t know exists, so informing those likely to be impacted by AI-generated work (educators, online publishers, students, etc.) about its potential harms is a foundational first step for preventing plagiarism. Encourage the ethical use of AI tools, such as using intelligent prompts to generate thought-starter outputs as valuable jumping-off points rather than presenting the exact output as original work. Generative AI can still be an extremely valuable tool for writers — with reasonable guardrails. AI is an aid for writers, not a replacement.
As AI tools continue to debut, their output will only improve and sound more human, making the detection of AI-generated content increasingly difficult. Establishing best practices to detect AI content sooner rather than later is imperative to preserve human-generated writing.
However, despite the challenges AI-powered plagiarism presents to original content creation, AI tools are an incredible opportunity for ethical writers who want to enhance their productivity while boosting creativity. AI can slash research times, assist with grammar checks and facilitate brainstorming sessions. The key is understanding that AI is a tool to augment human creativity, not replace it. While the landscape of content creation is always evolving, writers who prioritize the responsible use of AI tools will be able to navigate it seamlessly moving forward, resulting in the continuous delivery of inspiring, informative original content.
I am experienced and results-driven Brand, Digital & eCommerce Marketer. I have extensive hands-on eCommerce & digital marketing experience and over 7 years of experience working at strategic executive board level for an FTSE 100 business. I have worked in the digital and e-commerce field for over twelve years with ten years of this working at a leading e-commerce business AO World (AO.com), where I was a member of the Group Executive Board. My time at AO.com has enabled me to gain invaluable experience in all aspects of brand and digital marketing from startup through to assisting with floating AO onto FTSE 100. I am now focused on building a new media publisher startup in the Gaming and Technology sector.