How can you tell something has been written by ChatGPT?

CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit speaks to behavioural linguist and BreadCrumbs founder, Leigh Crymble, about this apparent shortcoming of AI software.

Listen below:

How can you tell that what you're reading right now was written by a human and not an AI-generator like ChatGPT?

According to Crymble, there are some tell-tale signs that a piece of writing may have been created by a bot.

And she says it's useful to know what these signs are, given the extent AI writing tools like ChatGPT are being used to create shortcuts.

RELATED: Cheating in the Age of AI: Universities need guidelines – Siphumelele Zondi, Durban University of Technology

"Studies say that almost 90% of American high schoolers are using it to turn in their homework."

- Leigh Crymble, Behavioural Linguist 

"We know universities are coming up with all sorts of detection tools to try and combat this clear cheating and plagiarism in an academic space."

- Leigh Crymble, Behavioural Linguist 

Crymble says one of the most obvious signs is the prevelence of the 'em dash'.

According to ChatGPT, an em dash (—) is a long dash used in writing to create a break in a sentence. 

She says that its usage has increased in recent times, and AI models have taken a liking to them.

"I'm very sad about the em dash, and I'm on a bit of an em dash crusade."

- Leigh Crymble, Behavioural Linguist 

Crymble jokes that she'd been using the em dash in her writing long before there was ChatGPT, and says she'll have to find some other punctuation habits to avoid being accused of using AI!

"Now I actively have to stop myself using it! I'm going back to the ellipses, the parentheses, the commas..."

- Leigh Crymble, Behavioural Linguist 

Crymble says language is what differentiates us from other species, and says in some ways it is under threat.

You can even ask ChatGPT to write you a break-up text, she adds.

"And it will spit out an appropriately written break-up message."

- Leigh Crymble, Behavioural Linguist 

"You can go on TikTok and see all these viral videos of these outraged jilted lovers posting these texts, because the patterning of the language is so similar."

- Leigh Crymble, Behavioural Linguist 

Scroll up to audio player to listen to the full conversation.