Technology Threatening the Publishing Industry: How AI Detection Undermines Writers' Credibility

Written by Tade · 2025-04-06

How much longer would AI detection continue to rob off writers' credibility in 2025?

While Artificial Intelligence has transformed many industries, its intrusion into the publishing industry raises alarm, casting doubt on the authenticity of writers' credibility. Throughout history, writers have faced numerous challenges, from criticism to rejection and suppression. Today, a new antagonist emerges to undermine genuine craft and cause writers to doubt their expertise. This intrusion raises concern for the writing community.

How many more clients will label writers as frauds, causing them to lose their jobs, opportunities, and self-respect? The emotional and psychological toll on these victims is immense, driving many to express their frustration across social media platforms.

Moreover, the current system, where AI detection undermines a writer's originality, needs to change. We must explore some authors' narratives to fully grasp the gravity of this issue and the urgency for intervention.

AI DETECTION VS REAL AUTHORS' CREATIVITY

The publishing industry has evolved from the books and magazines we were familiar with. Recently, it encompasses web publishing, academics, advertising, and e-commerce, and these industries need authors to succeed.

Technology is advancing, birthing AI generators like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Jasper.ai. Users optimize these AI generators to create mind-blowing content from scratch by a prompt. Unfortunately, the dark side of artificial intelligence (AI detectors) has stolen the livelihood of writers who chose to rely on their prowess. AI detectors like ZeroGPT, Copyleaks, GPTZero, Grammarly, Originality.AI, and Turnitin.

One of the victims of AI negative detection was Sydney Gill. In a memoir published in the Los Angeles Times, she expressed her ordeal and highlighted her disappointment.

“I was shocked to learn that the contest board had run my essay through AI detection software and found my essay to be 99% written by AI. I was immediately disqualified. I was shattered, baffled, and wrongly accused, with no consideration of my potential to prove my innocence. The AI detection software said I used AI, and that was it. The contest board believed the software to be infallible, and I had no case to make.”

Sydney participated in an annual writing contest regularly until the judges resorted to AI detection in the fifth year and disqualified her. The stigma did not end there; they flagged her past essay for using AI.

Undeterred by the devastating influence of AI in her career, she sought an appeal with the AI detection company, but it did not change the situation.

IS AI AS RELIABLE AS YOU THOUGHT?

It's a frustrating reality for writers to have to prove their innocence after submitting a project, all in the name of upholding their reputation in the face of AI. They've gone to great lengths to show proof of their research and drafts, even recording themselves and documenting their interactions with the AI detection companies that flagged their genuine work. But despite their efforts, convincing superiors and judges can often feel like a futile endeavor, especially after the worst has happened. Even if clients give them a benefit of a doubt, falsely accusing writers places them on an emotional rollercoaster that can't be easily flipped.

“We all know by now that AI is, in fact, very capable of spitting out generic content. But it can never quite bring to the table the value that human engineering writers can. This is because AI lacks the depth of understanding, contextual awareness, and industry knowledge that our team of professional engineers have.”

Dean McClements simply revealed that AI is not 100% accurate despite the misleading facts their websites incorporate. Just as he buttressed technical writers would always supersede AI below:

“Our writers are more than just content creators. We work with actual, experienced engineers who understand the nitty-gritty complexities of the topics they write about. This allows them to produce content that’s not only technically accurate but also super insightful, addressing all the in-depth tidbits that AI tools simply overlook.”

AI detection tools are fed with a broad database of human works to absorb style, tone, culture, and syntax resembling humans. Aiding this absorption are metrics: ‘Perplexity’ and ‘Burstiness’ fish AI-generated words, taking into account vocabulary patterns, sentence structure, and length. However, they do not accurately identify AI-generated texts, producing high false positives where AI flags human-written content. This has led academic writers, especially students, to the jaws of shocking results.

While AI detection tools imperfectly judge original craft, further proof shows that they fail to detect AI-generated documents ̶ The false negative. This is where the concept of ‘AI detection evasion tools’ comes into play. These tools, Undetectable AI or AISEO, help authors mimic human text to avoid AI detection. They work by altering text structure and style, increasing difficulty for AI detection tools to flag generated content. This shows an unfairness favoring compromised work over raw talent, and it is a trend that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the writing community.

WHEN AI DETECTION BECOMES AN IMPERSONATION?

“Life was so much easier as a writer on Fiverr before AI became a thing. Now I get clients who think they are AI experts and falsely accuse me of using AI because they think my writing “sounds like AI,” as if they know what it sounds like. It’s tiresome, annoying, and insulting because I am actually doing the work myself. I never use AI.”

Russflex, on the Fiverr forum, had something to say about AI significantly affecting his income. Another victim, Every_Examination494, ranted out of fright on a Reddit sub for Upwork and freelancers.

“A client on Upwork claimed I used AI to write a 100% original story. When plugged into that generator, it said it was 99% AI. When plugged into another detector, it said 99% human.

If he asks for a refund, I’m not sure how to go about it other than showing the other AI detector. Is anyone else experiencing this or just angry at AI in general?”

Has it come to trusting the AI algorithm over the writer’s expertise?

Stricken by the paranoia of losing opportunities, writers have no choice but to beat AI detection by altering their writing style. This compromise risks the loss of unique voices in the industry. We know that every writer identifies by style; removing the author’s voice would result in generic results, less intriguing, and reduced quality. Are we going to condone AI’s false algorithm over real writers?

POPULAR WORKS AI DETECTED, AND THEIR OUTCOME?

Benj Edwards, Senior AI Reporter, Ars Technica, tested two influential books that have shaped human existence for centuries using AI detection tools. The results of this test were a shocking revelation.

How much more convincing for works that never saw the light of technology today? Benj Edwards further tested parts of The US Constitution to GPTZero and ZeroGPT, and it stated:

GPTZero: “Your text is likely to be written entirely by AI.”

ZeroGPT: “Your text is AI/GPT Generated”

Open AI's Text Classifier: “The Classifier considers the text to be unclear if it is AI-generated.”

Meanwhile, GPTZero creator Edward Tian explained the logic behind the flagging the US constitution to Ars Technica:

“The US Constitution is a text fed repeatedly into the training data of many large language models. As a result, developers train these large language models to generate similar text to the Constitution and other frequently used training texts. GPTZero predicts text likely generated by large language models, thus, this fascinating phenomenon occurs.”

ZeroGPT flagged a section of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 1-8, as 88.2 percent AI-generated. This book dates back centuries before sophisticated technology.

The result of another popular book, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen had statistics emphasizing AI detection.

ZeroGPT flagged it at 73.9%

Copyleaks concluded that humans wrote it.

While ChatGPT sprung up at 17% AI-generated.

These results portray the incompetence of Artificial Intelligence, despite its advancement. AI still struggles to distinguish between AI-generated text and the author’s authentic style.

CONCLUSION

As technology advances with AI detection tools, the publishing industry evolves with it. By observing increased false positives and negatives, AI tools appear conflicted, judging human texts as 100% AI-generated, especially when these unique pieces possess commendable style and structure.

We need to prioritize this issue before it spirals out of control. Meanwhile, it is disheartening to see AI detection companies focus on monetization rather than protecting the writing industry. This inefficiency stretches across different niches of the publishing industry and is rooted deep in academia, where disciplinary committees punish innocent students for flagged works.

AI detection tools have never spared writers, from stealing their jobs to tarnishing their reputations for inaccurate content flagging. Students and workers should not be held entirely responsible by Artificial Intelligence. Instead, AI detection companies should create ethical policies and guidelines to support authors rather than stigmatize them.

 

Written by Tade · 2025-04-06