SEO agency Search Logistics has released a report that claims almost 90% of CNET’s AI-generated content was detectable using a public AI detection tool.
CNET Money had been experimenting with an “AI assist” to compile explainers in response to frequently asked questions. By mid-January they had published around 75 such articles.
Why we care. The results reported by Search Logistics, if iterable across larger samples of text, could be relevant to the many questions that have been raised about the use of ChatGPT-like content creation tools. For one thing, Google has said it will regard AI-generated content as “spam,” thus threatening search rankings for sites that come to depend heavily on such content. The Copyright Office has consistently said that only human-generated content can be copyrighted.
Such postures beg the question: Can AI-generated content be reliably identified? The Search Logistics study suggests the answer may be yes. This doesn’t necessarily mean AI can’t replace human content creators; just because the AI detection tool (Originality.AI) knows when it’s being fed the ruminations of a robot, it doesn’t follow that a human reader can tell.
The data. The report found that:
- 87.2% of CNET’s AI-generated content was detectable.
- 12.8% avoided detection.
- 19.2% of the articles tested had 50% or more content generated by AI.
- 7.7% had 75%+ AI-generated content.
(CNET has said that AI-generated content is fact-checked and edited by humans).
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About the author
Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space.
He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020.
Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.
