The best guide to spotting AI writing comes from Wikipedia

Wikipedia’s guide to “Signs of AI writing” is a great resource for learning to spot LLM-generated prose.

We’ve all felt the creeping suspicion that something we’re reading was written by a large language model — but it’s remarkably difficult to pin down. For a few months last year, everyone became convinced that specific words like “delve” or “underscore” could give models away, but the evidence is thin, and as models have grown more sophisticated, the telltale words have become harder to trace.

But as it turns out, the folks at Wikipedia have gotten pretty good at flagging AI-written prose — and the group’s public guide to “Signs of AI writing” is the best resource I’ve found for nailing down whether your suspicions are warranted. (Credit to the poet Jameson Fitzpatrick, who pointed out the document on X.)