When Errors Become Required

I remember the strong emphasis my instructors placed on using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation while attending school. My English and Creative Writing instructors were very focused on instilling the importance of this as one of the biggest parts of being a successful writer. I was taught that success as a writer hinged upon ensuring there were no errors in your writing because even if you wrote a great masterpiece, it would suffer due to errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation. What my instructors could not prepare for is the unfortunate and difficult reality facing writers today - AI. 

While the intent of AI may have been to aid people with the mundane tasks that many struggle with including writing, the emergence of AI has created a difficult situation for writers. I did not notice it until I began to publish more of my work and during my time as an AI Writing Evaluator. I struggled constantly with the company's program that would evaluate the tasks to ensure that employees were not using AI programs to do the work for them. My items were continually being flagged as being "AI-generated content" despite the fact that I have never actually used an AI program in my writing. This led to me being unfairly dismissed out of the blue by this company due to violations of their rules against using AI programs. I attempted to challenge this dismissal and was told the decision was final because their perfect "AI-content algorithm" proved that I was violating their rules and using AI programs in my work. 

This frustrating experience happened to me a second time recently when I was banned from Hubpages.com as a writer due to "publishing artificially generated content." Once again, the algorithms being used to detect AI-generated content is incorrectly flagging my work because I write using correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation as I was taught to do. Now, it appears what was once considered a strong skill to have as a writer has become a burden due to the emergence of AI causing good writing to falsely be flagged as being "AI-generated content." I attempted to dispute this unfair banning by Hubpages and once again was told that there would be no reconsiderations, because obviously, their AI-created algorithm cannot possibly make a mistake, right?

This is insulting to any writer because we put so much of ourselves into our work - our time, energy, and experiences. We are taught the importance of using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation in our work in order to be taken seriously as a writer, but now, we are being forced to write with errors to avoid our work being incorrectly flagged as being AI-generated. What makes this more interesting is the fact that after the banning from Hubpages, I took one of my articles and put it into an AI program to "improve" the writing. After all, I was curious how my work was in comparison to these AI programs that I was falsely accused of using. The changes the AI program made that supposedly are done to "improve" the writing, instead caused the article to lose all sense of humanity and had the unmistakable tone of a robot. 

This realization made the accusations of using supposed "AI-generated content" even more insulting to me because my work was without a doubt better than the "improved" version by these AI-writing helper programs. It seems that these companies are using flawed algorithm programs that look at grammar, spelling, and punctuation as the main factor in determining the use of AI tools. These companies fail to look at the actual work and therefore they miss the unmistakable tone of a human writer compared to an AI-robot. Which, brings us back to the main question - are writers now going to have to keep errors in their work to avoid being targeted falsely by these "AI-content" hunting algorithms? Is proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation no longer a great skill for a writer to have because these AI tools are creating the false conception that only AI robots are capable of excelling in that aspect? 

What is a writer to do when their work is constantly being falsely flagged by these algorithms for AI-generated content? When writers have no way to dispute or prove their case because these algorithms cannot possibly be flawed? These accusations against writers cause undue harm to a writer's reputation and yet, these companies continue to use flawed AI-created algorithms and stand by these flawed programs. These companies disregard the damage that they are doing to writers, who like me, are falsely accused of using AI-generated content. It appears the only answer is to throw out all of our hard work and mastered skills and begin to make mistakes - choosing between looking like an amateur writer or an AI-generating content fraud. 

The joy of living in a "technologically advanced" world, indeed… 

Note: AI was not used in any way, shape or form in writing this article. This is a frustrating disclaimer to have to include, however I feel it is necessary.

Article originally published on Medium.com - https://medium.com/@lunaverity80/when-errors-become-required-05964b7837cc

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