27 Recent Articles about AI & Writing

AI has rendered traditional writing skills obsolete. Education needs to adapt. - Brookings

Disclosing generative AI use for writing assistance should be voluntary – Sage Publishing

California colleges spend millions to catch plagiarism and AI. Is the faulty tech worth it? - Cal Matters

Losing Our Voice: The Human Cost of AI-Driven Language – LA Magazine

A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally. – New York Times

University of Limerick to investigate how AI text was part of book written by senior academic – Irish Examiner

As SEO Falls Apart, the Attention Economy Is Coming For You - INC 

Authors Are Posting TikToks to Protest AI Use in Writing—and to Prove They Aren’t Doing It – Wired  

I love this ChatGPT custom setting for writing — but it makes AI nearly undetectable – Tom’s Guide

AI can’t have my em dash – Salon

We asked 5 AI helpers to write tough emails. One was a clear winner. – Washington Post

Will Writing Survive A.I.? This Media Company Is Betting on It. – New York Times

Students Are Humanizing Their Writing—By Putting It Through AI – Wall Street Journal

Why misuse of generative AI is worse than plagiarism – Springer

The Great Language Flattening is underway—AI chatbots will begin influencing human language and not the other way around – The Atlantic

Tips to Tell Whether Something Was Written With AI – CNET

Is this AI or a journalist? Research reveals stylistic differences in news articles – Techxplore

Some people think AI writing has a tell — the em dash. Writers disagree. – Washington Post

LinkedIn CEO says AI writing assistant is not as popular as expected  - Tech Crunch

What happens when you use ChatGPT to write an essay? See what new study found. – USA Today

How AI Helps Our Students Deepen Their Writing (Yes, Really) – EdWeek

The Washington Post is planning to let amateur writers submit columns — with the help of AI – The Verge

Federal court says copyrighted books are fair use for AI training - Washington Post

Can academics use AI to write journal papers? What the guidelines say – The Conversation

I write novels and build AI. The real story is more complicated than either side admits – Fast Company

How to Detect AI Writing: Tips and Tricks to Tell if Something Is Written With AI – CNET

I Wrote a Novel About a Woman Building an AI Lover. Here’s What I Learned. – Wall Street Journal

27 Webinars this Week about AI, Journalism & Media

Mon, June 23 - Writing for the Reader's Brain

What: An informative webinar focusing the primary errors that writers make in emails, marketing materials, job application letters, and pitches.

Who: Yellowlees Douglas

When: 8 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Cambridge University

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Mon, June 23 - Agentic AI in News Media: Real-World Applications & Future Possibilities

What: This session will provide actionable insights for news organizations looking to harness the power of Agentic AI while navigating ethical and operational challenges.

Who: Ezra Eeman, WAN-IFRA AI Expert; Markus Franz, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG;

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: World Association of News Publishers

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Mon, June 23 - Leading for AI: The Three Mindsets for Thoughtful Implementation

What: This session cuts through the tech hype to focus on the essential mindset shifts required for successful AI adoption in nonprofits. Leaders will explore how experimentation, collaboration, and 'critical friend' mindsets influence AI implementation success in their organizations. This presentation uses a unique blend of leadership, coaching, behavior change, and org development to help leaders navigate the human side of AI.

Who: Valerie Ehrlich, Mission Bloom.

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Nonprofit Learning Lab

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Tue, June 24 - Using Public Records To Fight Government Secrecy and Improve Communities

What: These experts will discuss how secrecy harms communities and damages trust in all levels of government, and how records requests can fight back and help inform the public. The panel will discuss success stories and lessons learned, and share practical tips about how to craft the most effective requests possible, even at this daunting hour for the public’s right to know.

Who: Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at FPF; Michael Morisy, CEO at MuckRock Miranda Spivack, journalist and author of “Backroom Deals in Our Backyards”; Nate Jones, FOIA director at The Washington Post and ​​author of “Able Archer 83”.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Freedom of the Press Foundation

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Tue, June 24 - AI-Powered Government: 3 Strategies to Transform Your Workforce

What: Industry experts will discuss how the advent of artificial intelligence is reshaping the public sector and what you can do to stay ahead.

Who: Jason Joseph, Workforce Transformation Solution Principal, Dell Federal Services; Scott Morris, Senior Director, Dell’s Modern Workspace Solutions Group; Andrew Saltra, Business Development Manager, Dell Federal Services.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: GovLoop

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Tue, June 24 - How To Create An Interactive Podcast From Your Sermons

What: Learn: How to upload a sermon and turn it into a conversational podcast using AI; How to use Google Notebook LM to summarize and discuss sermon content with AI-generated hosts; How to create private podcasts specifically for small group leaders; How to publish your podcast for free using Spotify for Podcasters.

Who: Kenny Jahng, founder of AI for Church Leaders.

When: 12:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: $7

Sponsor: AIforChurchLeaders.com

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Tue, June 24 - How to Set the Right AI Rules for the Campus

What: We’ll explore: What innovative assignments encourage the proper use of generative AI tools; How AI can be both beneficial and detrimental for students in diverse degree fields; What generative AI rules should be established for extracurricular activities on college campuses; How faculty can enforce AI rules both inside and outside the classroom.

Who: Ian Wilhelm Deputy Managing Editor, The Chronicle of Higher Education; Van L. Davis Executive Director WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies; Gloria Niles Director of Online Learning, University of Hawai'i System; Elizabeth Reilley Executive Director, AI Acceleration, Arizona State University; Valerie Riggs, Ed.D Assistant Professor of Teacher Education and Professional Development, Morgan State University

When: 2:00 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Chronicle of Higher Ed

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Tue, June 24 - Public Health Journalism: Finding focus and shaping your narrative 

What: Learn how to find focus and harness your narrative. We’ll share tips for organization, editing yourself, and finding clarity. 

When: 12:00 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: National Press Club Journalism Institute

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Tue, June 24 - How to Cover Plastic Pollution

What: Are you a journalist interested in covering plastics? Join this webinar to learn how to report on this pressing topic from science, civil society, and journalism specialists.

Who: Charles Pekow, freelance journalist and Mongabay contributor; Ana Lê Rocha from the Global Plastics Program at GAIA; Philip J. Landrigan, MD from the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College.

When: 8 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Mongabay

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Tue, June 24 - OpenAI Academy Information Session

What: Discover how OpenAI Academy’s free educational tools, including webinars, guides, and videos can support your journey into artificial intelligence. Whether you’re an educator or AI enthusiast, this session will walk you through the platform, highlight tailored resources, and offer a live Q&A with the team.

Who: Cynthia Pereda, LCSW Grant Director, NAAIC; Antonio Delgado Vice President, Innovation and Technology Partners, Miami Dade College; Alex Nawar Head of OpenAI Academy, OpenAI.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsors: National Applied AI Consortium, OpenAI Academy

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Wed, June 25 - From Draft to Submission: AI Tools for Optimizing the Research Workflow

What: This session will introduce participants to the most effective AI tools for optimizing each stage of the research workflow. Whether you’re an experienced AI user or exploring these tools for the first time, the session will provide insights into selecting the right solutions while addressing concerns about privacy, reliability, and ethical considerations.    

Who: Raffaella Gozzelino Group Leader at NOVA Medical School of Lisbon; Vasundara BN Project Manager, Cactus Communications.

When: 3 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Editage

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Wed, June 25 - Reimagining Financial Journalism in the Age of AI

What: This webinar will explore how we should redefine and re-educate financial journalists for an AI-augmented future.

Who: Ryk van Niekerk, an award-winning financial journalist with more than 25 years of experience. He currently serves as the editor of Moneyweb and hosts RSG Geldsake, the most widely listened-to business radio show in South Africa; Rob Rose, a South African business journalist with over two decades of experience in financial and investigative reporting. He is currently editor and co-founder of Currency, a financial news publication.

When: 7 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Wits Centre for Journalism, Johannesburg

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Wed, June 25 - A Trauma informed care for grieving families

What: Learn how grief affects children at different developmental stages. The Do’s and Don’ts of trauma informed responses. And how to best support grieving youth and families.

Who: Paula Newcom, Northeast Regional Coordinator, Indiana State Library; Lindsy Diener-Locke,  LSW·Ryan’s Place (Goshen, Indiana).

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Indiana State Library

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Wed, June 25 - Enhancing the research journey in the Web of Science

What: We will explore the latest AI-driven enhancements to the Web of Science that are transforming the research experience.

Who: Elizabeth Killeen, Life Sciences Librarian, Imperial College London.

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Clarivate

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Wed, June 25 - Beyond Traffic: How Publishers Are Diversifying Advertising Revenue

What: Join executives from two top news media companies as they share practical strategies for building direct relationships, implementing engagement-focused KPIs, and demonstrating to advertisers why engaged audiences command premium CPMs over anonymous traffic.

Who: David Murphy, Group Head of Digital, The Irish Times; Tuomas Airisto, Chief Commercial Officer, Sanoma Media Finland.

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free to INMA members

Sponsor: International News Media Association

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Wed, June 25 - Harnessing AI: How journalists can reap the benefits – and avoid the pitfalls – of emerging AI tools

What: This panel will share some practical examples of how to incorporate AI tools into your day-to-day workflow. When used correctly, AI can help business journalists do their jobs more efficiently. The panel will also cover best practices to avoid AI hallucinations and other pitfalls, and how to ensure accountability to readers.

Who: Kylie Robison, Senior Correspondent, Wired; Ben Welsh, News Applications Editor, Reuters;  Greg Saitz, Investigations Editor, FT Specialist US.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free to SABEW members, $10 for nonmembers

Sponsor: Society of American Business Editors and Writers

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Wed, June 25 - Geospatial Intelligence – New Data to Solutions

What: This webinar that takes you deep into the Geospatial intelligence lifecycle—from the capture of data to the advanced analytical tools and how advances in AI and machine learning are transforming it into actionable insights. Discover how organizations across sectors are leveraging geospatial intelligence to drive strategic decisions, optimize operations, reduce risk, and create new value in government, business, and humanitarian missions.

Who: Debra Werner Correspondent SpaceNews; Chad Anderson, Founder & CEO Space Capital; Brian Pope, Vice President of Intel Programs Maxar Intelligence; Scot Currie, Vice President of Geospatial Solutions BlackSky.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Black Sky

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Wed, June 25 - The Ultimate Scrivener Guide for Non-Fiction Writers Who Want Results

What: This webinar is your step-by-step guide to mastering Scrivener, the ultimate tool for organizing research, crafting outlines, and producing polished manuscripts. Perfect for writers of memoirs, how-to guides, and journalistic works, this session delivers practical techniques you can use right away to simplify your process and achieve your writing goals.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Scrivener

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Thu, June 26 - 2025 Cybersecurity Trends: Key Findings from Radware’s Global Application Security Survey

What: Join us for an in-depth look at Radware’s 2025 Cyber Survey, conducted in partnership with Osterman Research. Based on responses from hundreds of security and IT leaders across industries and regions, the report reveals growing concerns around offensive AI, API business logic attacks, third-party exposure, DDoS disruptions, and compliance gaps. This session will explore the key findings, including why most organizations lack visibility, documentation, and real-time protections. Learn what these trends mean for your customers and how Radware can help address the most urgent challenges in application, API, and cloud security.

Who: Dan Schnour; Michael Sampson

When: 2 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Radware

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Thu, June 26 – Rewriting the Leadership Playbook: Innovative Ideas from the Executive Program

What: Join the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY for a showcase of bold ideas and breakthrough strategies from the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership at the Newmark J-School.

Who: ​Aldana Vales, Director of Audience Experiences at Gannett – USA TODAY Network; Andrea McDaniels, Managing Editor at The Baltimore Banner; Mariah Craddick, Executive Director of Product at The Atlantic; Paris Brown, Publisher at The Baltimore Times; Ross Maghielse, Deputy Managing Editor, Innovation & Development at The Philadelphia Inquirer; and 13 others.

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY

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Thu, June 26 – Accessing Immigration Records

What: What can local reporters do to get the records they need?

Who: Ellen Goodrich, Jack Nelson-Dow Jones Foundation Legal Fellow at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Renee Griffin, Staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, where she oversees the Legal Hotline; Lau Guzmá, Reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio covering immigrant communities, housing, education and health; Jason Leopold, Senior investigative reporter at Bloomberg and federal Freedom of Information Act expert. 

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsors: The New England First Amendment Coalition, the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications

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Thu, June 26 – Automate Your Outreach: AI for Email and Social Media

What: This webinar is designed specifically for busy business owners and marketers. You’ll learn how to harness the latest in AI and automation to plan, write, and schedule your marketing—without sounding robotic.

When: 12:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Dream Local Digital

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Thu, June 26 – AI and Law in Communication

What: Cayce Myers will share insights from his newly published book, “Artificial Intelligence and Law in the Communication Professions.” He’ll discuss the latest developments in AI regulation and what they mean for public relations, journalism, and advertising professionals.

Who: Cayce Myers, a nationally recognized expert on communication law and emerging technologies. He serves as the Director of Graduate Studies and a professor in the School of Communication at Virginia Tech.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Nashville Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America

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Thu, June 26 – Empowering Communities Through Applied AI

What: This session is designed to demystify AI and empower individuals through real-world applications. From ethical considerations to practical demonstrations of AI tools like ChatGPT and custom GPTs, participants will gain insights into how AI can be responsibly and effectively used across professional settings.

Who: Sheena Johns Instructor, Miami Dade College; Christian Vivas Founder, RAWBBIT; Dr. José A. Fernández-Calvo Leader, AI Center, Miami Dade College; Michael Mannino Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Syneurgy; Pedro A. Santos Acosta Executive Director of Emerging Technologies, Miami Dade College;

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: OpenAI Academy, Miami Dade College

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Thu, June 26 - Build a Beautiful, Impactful Website with Wix

What: Discover how to effortlessly create a stunning website for your nonprofit using Wix's user-friendly tools. In this webinar, we’ll explore the power of the AI Site Generator, which helps you launch a fully designed and content-ready site in minutes. You’ll also get tips for using the Wix Editor, a no-code, drag-and-drop platform that makes customization a breeze. Finally, learn how the Wix Blog can help you share your story, increase visibility, and connect with your supporters. Perfect for nonprofits starting from scratch or looking to refresh their online presence.

Who: Ala Ebrahim, Head of B2B Product Training, Wix,

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: TechSoup

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Thu, June 26 - Building a Winning Video Strategy

What: How to assess your resources and tools to craft compelling video journalism for digital and broadcast. We’ll cover equipment needs for solo or small teams with various budgets for shooting and editing and tips for creating short form and 6-10 minute news feature video stories. Let this workshop be the catalyst for crafting a functional video strategy that fits your organization’s goals.

Who: Veteran visual journalist Robert Meek.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: $20

Sponsor: Video Consortium

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Thu, June 26 - Know your rights: Legal Protections for Journalists in the Field

What: This webinar will focus how to safely navigate police interactions and other tips for report in the field.

Who: Yelan Escalona, Attorney at Shullman Fugate; Karla Burgos-Moron, Pro Bono Partnerships Coordinator at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

When: 5:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: National Association of Hispanic Journalists

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Grammarly Offering Authorship Tool

Grammarly has created a new authorship tool. It tracks the writing process, showing where text is typed into a document or pasted, as well as which parts of a document are created or modified with AI. When the paper is complete, a report is generated, which students can show teachers if there is any question about the source of their work. -Wall Street Journal 

Emotional Support Punctuation

“The em dash is such a powerful writing tool that also carries great subtlety to it,” said Aileen Gallagher, a journalism professor at Syracuse University. “The idea that it is an indicator of soulless, dead AI-generated writing is really upsetting to me. Moniza Hossain, a children’s author based in Britain, called the em dash her “emotional support punctuation mark.” -Washington Post

24 Recent Articles about AI & Writing

Independent says readers ‘often prefer’ stories provided by new AI service to human-written versions of those articles– Press Gazette 

Why AI can’t take over creative writing – The Conversation  

NaNoWriMo shut down after AI, content moderation scandals – TechCrunch

The best AI email writing assistant: We tested 5, and only one beats a human - The Washington Post

Researchers surprised to find less-educated areas adopting AI writing tools faster - Ars Technica

ChatGPT firm reveals AI model that is ‘good at creative writing’ – The Guardian

OpenAI’s ‘creative writing’ AI evokes that annoying kid from high school fiction club - TechCrunch

AI Search Has A Citation Problem – Columbia Journalism Review

Break through writer’s block with an AI-powered creativity hack – Mashable

What is interesting writing and can LLMs create it? – Stat Modeling

AI Anxiety Can writing at Harvard coexist with new technologies? – Harvard Magazine

Hollywood writers say AI is ripping off their work. They want studios to sue – LA Times

Is There A Place For AI In Creative Writing? – Caversham Writers

AI won't remove the need for human editing – Times Higher Ed

New AI tool could redefine book charts and bestseller lists – Jerusalem Post  

Dow Jones negotiates AI usage agreements with nearly 4,000 news publishers – Harvard’s Nieman Lab  

Springer Nature reveals AI-driven tool to 'automate some editorial quality checks' – The Bookseller

Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries – 404 Media

Every doctor is a writer: On the end of note-writing and meaning-making in medicine – Stat News

University students describe how they adopt AI for writing and research in a general education course – Nature  

Meta Is Experimenting With AI-Generated Comments, for Some Reason – Life Hacker

Writers respond to the short story written by AI – The Guardian  

People say they prefer stories written by humans over AI-generated works, yet new study suggests that’s not quite true – The Conversation  

How Scottsdale police are using AI to help write crime reports – Arizona’s Family  

13 Ways to Spot AI Writing

Tips for determining if an article is likely written by AI.

OVERUSED WORDS. AI-written articles tend to come back to the same terms multiple times. Examples would be comprehensive, delve, meticulous, versatile and pivotal. Before 2024, overused AI words in scientific research papers were typically nouns. More recently, researchers say AI excessively uses "style" words—mostly verbs and some adjectives. The phrases AI picks up can often make the text sound more like marketing material than academic scholarship or quality news writing.

TORTURED ACRONYMS. Generative AI will sometimes pick up the wrong words for an acronym. For instance, a data science paper might use "CNN" to refer to "convolutional brain organization" instead of "convolutional neural network.”

NONSENSICAL PARAPHRASES. An academic paper written by AI might have “glucose bigotry” instead of “glucose intolerance,” where it changed a single word and did not recognize the context.  

ACADEMIC CITATIONS. AI-written articles with academic citations have been known to include incorrect or incomplete references. AI writing has been also known to take quotations out of quotation marks, paraphrase them, and delete the citation.

STYLE CHANGES. A sudden change in writing style within an article or essay may indicate that the author’s work was rewritten using AI.

PERFECT GRAMMAR. A typo, particularly in student writing, could indicate the article or essay is not wholly the work of a bot. Mistake-free writing is, ironically, a red flag. However, savvy writing prompts may ask the AI to include some errors in order to mislead inspectors.

MECHANICAL STYLING. AI tends to mechanically repeat expressions that appear often in the internet material that it was trained on. The result is often uninspired and generic prose that often lacks any specific point. 

ARTICLES. AI will make errors in the use of definite and indefinite articles, often because it does not recognize the context to determine whether an article is required and which one. For example, AI editors will often fail to use the definite article before common nouns such as “participants” and “results” when referring to a study.  “Results show that…” is a general reference while “The results show that…” are those of the present study. Generative AI will miss this distinction.

SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT. AI often fumbles subject-verb agreement when the verb does not immediately proceed the verb. 

VERB TENSE. Generative AI will confuse when to use past tense and present tense.

LINKING WORDS. AI editors tend to delete words linking sentences and paragraphs, such as “however,” “therefore,” “in contrast,” and “moreover.”

ARCHAIC LANGUAGE. Since older texts from the early twentieth have been more available to use as training data sets for LLMs than current writing samples, some researchers have found overuse of words that were popular then but have since fallen out of common usage as evidence of generative AI.  

PREDICTABILITY. Text is more likely to be human than AI when it includes sarcasm, current pop-references or insults the reader. Writing that doesn't match predictable patterns is more likely to be human generated.

 More about spotting fake news

The Top 7 Chatbots for Writing

ChatGPT

Trained on the most data so it is the most powerful overall AI. Faster than other chatbots and can answer more difficult, complex questions than many other chatbots with better memory. Processes up to 25K words and can use both images and text as inputs. It doesn’t do sourcing and does not pull from the most recent info. Can browse the internet with Bing. Performed faster than other chatbots in tests, offering more-thorough answers, and answers more-difficult, complex questions. The advance voice mode makes it easy to chat with while you are on the go, making it a useful replacement for search quires. There’s a feature that allows users to customize the tone and voice to their own style of writing. There is a limited free version or pay $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus.  

Perplexity AI

A good research option among the generative AI tools when accuracy is critical. It acts like a search engine but includes results from the web (unlike ChatGPT).Automatically shows where the information came from, so it’s more reliable than ChatGPT. Users can specify where they want the information to be drawn from among a few categories such as academic sources or YouTube. Users can also upload documents as sources and ask it to rewrite prompts. It suggests follow-up questions you might not have considered. Less useful for creative writing. In tests, it was better at summarizing passages, providing information on current events and do coding better than other chatbots. Unmatched speed and accuracy in processing millions of data makes it very useful to data scientists for advanced predictive models. The free plan allows 3 pro searches every four hours. Video tutorial here.

ChatSonic

Created by WriteSonic built on top of the same technology that powers ChatGPT. Can assume personas such as a philosopher or stand-up comic. Create up to 100 AI-generated images each month for free. Connected to the internet, so it can provide real-time, up-to-date answers, which ChatGPT cannot do. Free.

Claude

Writing, coding, in-depth analysis AI. Designed to be inoffensive. Like ChatGPT, it can act on text or uploaded files. Useful for summarizing long transcripts, clarifying complex writings, and generating lists of ideas and questions. Can analyze huge documents, up to 75K words at a time. In tests, it is more conversational, gives direct answers, sometimes links to sources, and offers better creative writing suggestions than other chatbots but can be slower. It can mimic your writing style and users have the option of three presets: formal style, concise, or explanatory style. Trained on the AP Stylebook. Free plan allows up to 40 messages a day.

Gemini

Google claims this large language model is better at math, coding and other tasks than many other programs. It provides real time responses with the help of Google’s search engine. Besides text, it can take commands that come as videos, images, voice and code. It has access to more timely and updated information than ChatGPT. Gemini Advanced costs $20 a month after the trial period ends.

Jasper AI

AI story writing tool for fiction and nonfiction. Pick a tone of voice for style. Pre-built templates available. A more business-focused AI that is particularly helpful for advertising and marketing. Remembers past queries, However, no sources are provided and limited to pre-2022 information. Short free trial. $29 month.

Poe (Platform for Open Exploration)

Created by Quora, this AI lets users create a personalized chatbot using one of 70 bots (such as OpenAI or Anthropic). Poe lets you compare and contrast models to find the right fit for your specific need in any given moment. (Poe doesn't have its own large language model.) Free.

 

AI Text Tools for Everyday

ChatGPT for quick inquiries

Claude as an everyday workhorse

Perplexity for research

NotebookLM to condense large amounts of information

Infography.in for text to infographics

Napkin AI to convert text into visuals and charts.

More AI Tools

Will Human-generated Content Maintain its Value?

Multiple times daily, I find myself silently asking, Did you really write this or did AI? Just like handwritten notes have decreased over time, human-generated content will also decrease over time, but it will maintain its value—because we hunger to be heard and cared for by another human. However, unlike handwritten notes, it will be harder to distinguish between AI-generated content and human-generated content. - Tara Chklovski writing in Fast Company

As I’ve become older

My first book was about a lot of pain and a lot of knee-jerk, reactionary responses to being mistreated and abused [emotionally and physically]. When I look back on it now, I see it wasn’t about craft. It was my release. 

As I’ve become older, I’m learning more about what grace really means, and what it means to be able to bring a slice of joy to somebody. At the end of the day, I’d like to think, “What did I do today that was beneficial for somebody?” I know I can’t change the world, save the world, but I believe if all of us scratch hard enough in the same little spots where we occupy time, where we live, play and die, that we can effect change.

Jaki Shelton Green speaking to the Washington Post

26 Recent Articles about AI & Writing

Should You Write with Gen AI – Harvard Business Review

To Use AI or Not to Use AI? A Student’s Burden – Inside Higher Ed

The distinct human writer becomes more essential – Harvard’s Nieman Lab

How Indigenous engineers are using AI to preserve their culture – NBC News

Harvard Is Releasing a Massive Free AI Training Dataset of nearly 1 million public-domain books – Wired  

How to identify AI-generated text: 7 ways to tell if content was made by a bot – Mashable

Over half of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn are AI-generated – Wired  

TV Writers Found 139,000 of Their Scripts Trained AI – The Ankler

Is Grammarly AI? Notre Dame Says Yes – Inside Higher Ed

The Poetry Turing Test

Stanford Professor Accused of Using AI to Write Expert Testimony Criticizing Deepfakes – Gizmodo

AI Companies Are Trying to Get MIT Press Books – 404Media

There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI – The Atlantic

What genre of writing is AI-generated poetry? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

What Kind of Writer Is ChatGPT? – New Yorker

HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Sell Authors' Work to AI Company - 404Media

Why Watermarking Text Fails to Stop Misinformation and Plagiarism – Data Innovation  

National Novel Writing Month faces backlash over allowing AI: What to know – Washington Post   

How to Tell If What You're Reading Was Written By AI - Lifehacker 

Can a Start-Up Help Authors Get Paid by A.I. Companies – New York Times

Google unveils invisible ‘watermark’ for AI-generated text – Nature

The Difference Between Editing Human vs AI Writing - Rebecca Dugas on Substack 

Writer Ted Chiang on AI and grappling with big ideas – NPR  

AI is My Research & Writing Partner. Should I disclose it? – Wired

Writers Guild Calls on Studios to Take “Immediate Legal Action” Against AI Companies – Hollywood Reporter  

You can now ask Claude to mimic your writing style – Tech Radar

5 Tips for a Healthy Use of AI

The following strategies can help you maintain a healthy balance between your expertise and AI assistance:

  1. Generate rough drafts from notes, rather than from a blank page: It’s fine to generate drafts with AI, but do your thinking first, put together some structured notes, and treat AI-generated content as a first draft that requires critical review and substantial editing. This approach can help mitigate the risk of anchoring bias.

  2. Rotate between AI-assisted and non-assisted writing: To develop and maintain your own writing skills, interweave AI tools into your writing workflow, rather than relying on them for chunks of text. This will also help you maintain your own voice.

  3. Customize AI prompts: Learn to craft specific prompts that guide the AI to produce more relevant and useful outputs for your particular needs.

  4. Ethical considerations: Be transparent about AI use, especially in academic writing, and follow any guidelines or policies set by your institution or publication venues.

  5. Fact-check and verify: Always verify facts, citations and specific claims made by AI. These tools have a tendency to generate “hallucinations,” plausible-sounding but inaccurate chunks of information.

From The Transmitter

26 Recent Articles about AI & Writing

From bench to bot: Does AI really make you a more efficient writer? - The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

Did an AI write up your arrest? Hard to know – Politico

AI Editing: Are We There Yet? - Science Editor

How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? - Modern Language Association

I tested 7 AI content detectors - they're getting dramatically better at identifying plagiarism – Zdnet 

OpenAI says it’s taking a ‘deliberate approach’ to releasing tools that can detect writing from ChatGPT  - Tech Crunch  

AI is complicating plagiarism. How should scientists respond? – Nature

The telltale words that could identify generative AI text - Arstechnica

Research shows that AI-generated slop overuses specific words – Futurism

AI took their jobs. Now they get paid to make it sound human – BBC  

AI and the Death of Student Writing – Chronicle of Higher Ed

Software that detects ‘tortured acronyms’ in research papers could help root out misconduct | Science | AAAS – Science

How AI Reshapes Vocabulary: Unveiling the Most Used Terms Related to the Technology – Every Pixel  

How to tell if something is written by ChatGPT – Read Write 

Coursera Launches AI Plagiarism Detector – Inside Higher Ed 

I Tested Three AI Essay-writing Tools, and Here’s What I Found – Life Hacker

New study on AI-assisted creativity reveals an interesting social dilemma – Psypost  

How to cite ChatGPT in APA Style –  American Psychological Association

Is ChatGPT a Reliable Ghostwriter? - The Journal of Nuclear Medicine 

AI Is Coming for Amateur Novelists. That’s Fine. - The Atlantic

National Novel Writing Month faces backlash over allowing AI: What to know – Washington Post

How Do You Change a Chatbot’s Mind?, I discovered a new world of A.I. manipulation. – New York Times 

If journalism is going up in smoke, I might as well get high off the fumes: confessions of a chatbot helper – The Guardian  

College Writing Centers Worry AI Could Replace Them – EdSurge

No laughing matter - how AI is helping comedians write jokes – BBC

What Teachers Told Me About A.I. in School - New York Times

Clear Writing vs Legalize

MIT cognitive scientists set out to determine why laws are written in an incomprehensible style. Lawyers don’t like it. Your average person doesn’t like it, so why does it persist? The researchers theorized that legal writers start by coming up with a main idea but then they keep finding reasons to qualify the rules, and soon the writing is overly complicated. It turns out that wasn’t it at all. When they had people try to write laws, they immediately adopted a convoluted style of legal language. It’s called the "magic spell hypothesis." The researchers say, “Just as magic spells are written with a distinctive style that sets them apart from everyday language, using legal language appears to signal a special kind of authority.” Academic writing is similar. When students are asked to write something for a class, they immediately adopt the overly-formal writing style of academics.  

More: Study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style

A Personal Notebook

Successful people track their progress, set goals, reflect, and learn from their mistakes. And they often use some kind notebook to accomplish this. If you want to get somewhere in life, you need a map, and this notebook is that map. You can write down what you did today, what you tried to accomplish, where you made mistakes, and so forth. It’s a place to reflect. It’s a place to capture important thoughts. It’s a place to be able to track where you’ve been and where you intend to go. It’s one of the most underused, yet incredibly effective tools available to the masses.

Angel Chernoff

21 Recent Articles about AI & Writing

14 quotes worth reading about students using AI

Bots like ChatGPT show great promise as a “writing consultant” for students. “It’s not often that students have a chance to sit down with a professor and have long discussions about how to go about this paper, that paper, how to approach research on this topic and that topic. But ChatGPT can do that for them, provided…they know how to use the right ethics, to use it as a tool and not a replacement for their work.” CalMatters 

Don’t rely on AI to know things instead of knowing them yourself. AI can lend a helping hand, but it’s an artificial intelligence that isn’t the same as yours. One scientist described to me how younger colleagues often “cobble together a solution” to a problem by using AI. But if the solution doesn’t work, “they don’t have anywhere to turn because they don’t understand the crux of the problem” that they’re trying to solve. Chronicle of Higher Ed

Janine Holc thinks that students are much too reliant on generative AI, defaulting to it, she wrote, “for even the smallest writing, such as a one sentence response uploaded to a shared document.” As a result, wrote Holc, a professor of political science at Loyola University Maryland, “they have lost confidence in their own writing process. I think the issue of confidence in one’s own voice is something to be addressed as we grapple with this topic.” Chronicle of Higher Ed

It’s a conversation that can be evoked at will. But it’s not different in the content. You still have to evaluate what someone says and whether or not it’s sensible. CalMatters 

Helena Kashleva, an adjunct instructor at Florida SouthWestern State College, spots a sea-change in STEM education, noting that many assignments in introductory courses serve mainly to check students’ understanding. “With the advent of AI, grading such assignments becomes pointless.” Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Given how widely faculty members vary on what kinds of AI are OK for students to use, though, that may be an impossible goal. And of course, even if they find common ground, the technology is evolving so quickly that policies may soon become obsolete. Students are also getting more savvy in their use of these tools. It’s going to be hard for their instructors to keep up. Chronicle of Higher Ed 

In situations when you or your group feel stuck, generative AI can definitely help. The trick is to learn how to prompt it in a way that can help you get unstuck. Sometimes you’ll need to try a few prompts up until you’ll get something you like.  UXdesign.cc

Proponents contend that classroom chatbots could democratize the idea of tutoring by automatically customizing responses to students, allowing them to work on lessons at their own pace. Critics warn that the bots, which are trained on vast databases of texts, can fabricate plausible-sounding misinformation — making them a risky bet for schools. New York Times

Parents are eager to have their children use the generative AI technology in the classroom. Sixty-four percent said they think teachers and schools should allow students to use ChatGPT to do schoolwork, with 28 percent saying that schools should encourage the technology’s use. Ed Week

Student newspaper editors at Middlebury College have called for a reconsideration of the school’s honor code after a survey found two-thirds of students admitted to breaking it—nearly twice as many as before the pandemic. Wall Street Journal 

If you are accused of cheating with AI Google Docs or Microsoft Word could help. Both offer a version history function that can keep track of changes to the file, so you can demonstrate how long you worked on it and that whole chunks didn’t magically appear. Some students simply screen record themselves writing. Washington Post 

There is no bright line between “my intelligence” and “other intelligence,” artificial or otherwise. It’s an academic truism that no idea exists in an intellectual vacuum. We use other people’s ideas whenever we quote or paraphrase. The important thing is how. Chronicle of Higher Ed

Quizlet has announced four new AI features that will help with student learning and managing their classwork, including Magic Notes, Memory Score, Quick Summary, and AI-Enhanced Expert Solutions.  ZDnet 

James Neave, Adzuna’s head of data science, recommends interested job applicants build up their AI skills and stand out from the competition in three key ways: Stay on top of developments, use AI in your own work, and show how you’ve used AI successfully to achieve a specific goal. CNBC

8 good quotes about students cheating with AI   

Is it cheating to use AI to brainstorm, or should that distinction be reserved for writing that you pretend is yours? Should AI be banned from the classroom, or is that irresponsible, given how quickly it is seeping into everyday life? Should a student caught cheating with AI be punished because they passed work off as their own, or given a second chance, especially if different professors have different rules and students aren’t always sure what use is appropriate? Chronicle of Higher Ed 

What about students cheating by using ChatGPT instead of doing their own writing? The thing about technology is that it is interfering with the very weak proxies we have of measuring student learning, namely homework and tests. (Generative AI) is just another reminder that it’s actually really hard to know how much someone has learned something, and especially if we’re not talking to them directly but relying on some scaled up automated or nearly automated system to measure it for us. MathBabe Cathy O’Neil

Sometimes, though, professors who felt they had pretty strong evidence of AI usage were met with excuses, avoidance, or denial. Bridget Robinson-Riegler, a psychology professor at Augsburg University, in Minnesota, caught some obvious cheating (one student forgot to take out a reference ChatGPT had made to itself) and gave those students zeros. But she also found herself having to give passing grades to others even though she was pretty sure their work had been generated by AI (the writings were almost identical to each other). Chronicle of Higher Ed 

As professors of educational psychology and educational technology, we’ve found that the main reason students cheat is their academic motivation. The decision to cheat or not, therefore, often relates to how academic assignments and tests are constructed and assessed, not on the availability of technological shortcuts. When they have the opportunity to rewrite an essay or retake a test if they don’t do well initially, students are less likely to cheat. The Conversation

Lorie Paldino, an assistant professor of English and digital communications at the University of Saint Mary, in Leavenworth, Kan., described how she asked one student, who had submitted an argument-based research essay, to bring to her the printed and annotated articles they used for research, along with the bibliography, outline, and other supporting work. Paldino then explained to the student why the essay fell short: It was formulaic, inaccurate, and lacked necessary detail. The professor concluded with showing the student the Turnitin results and the student admitted to using AI. Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Our research demonstrates that students are more likely to cheat when assignments are designed in ways that encourage them to outperform their classmates. In contrast, students are less likely to cheat when teachers assign academic tasks that prompt them to work collaboratively and to focus on mastering content instead of getting a good grade. The Conversation

A common finding (from our survey): Professors realized they needed to get on top of the issue more quickly. It wasn’t enough to wait until problems arose, some wrote, or to simply add an AI policy to their syllabus. They had to talk through scenarios with their students. Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Matthew Swagler, an assistant professor of history at Connecticut College, had instituted a policy that students could use a large language model for assistance, but only if they cited its usage. But that wasn’t sufficient to prevent misuse, he realized, nor prevent confusion among students about what was acceptable. He initiated a class discussion, which was beneficial: “It became clear that the line between which AI is acceptable and which is not is very blurry, because AI is being integrated into so many apps and programs we use.”  Chronicle of Higher Ed